By Stephen Joseph
One aspect of teaching and learning that appeals to me is applying questioning strategies. However, one major challenges I face as a guest Lecturer within the Social Work department is that I have regular contact with only a proportion of the students in tutorials. As I tend to conduct lectures with all the students in the particular cohort of programmes on an ad hoc basis, I have limited knowledge of the students’ experiences and knowledge on some specific concepts prior to the lectures.
When I conducted a lecture on the Mental Health Act to a large class of Masters of Social Work students recently, I adopted a questioning technique of asking the students to share their experience of the workings and application of the mental health law in their placements. This was in a bid to enable the students relate the concepts to their experiences as well as to encourage interactive learning.
One major aim of the session was to enable students gain an understanding of the principles and conditions provided by the Mental Health Act, and to enable students develop critical thinking whilst relating the concepts to their practice as student social workers in preparation for their world of work. I do agree with Ken Bain (2004) that stimulating questions promote 'natural critical learning’ and help students to understand the connection between those inquiries and matters that already concern them”. Furthermore, although students characteristics such as prior domain knowledge, play a huge role in teaching (Dunlosky et al, (2013; Kolb et al, 1999; Jarvis, 2006). It is however rather challenging if the teacher does not have enough knowledge about the status of the students’ knowledge and exposure.
In this context, I found however that only a handful of the students had been exposed to the working of the law in their placements. However, due to time constraints, I was unable to follow through with my plan to conduct follow-on questioning, as the due to the minimal responses.
If confronted with a similar situation in the future, I will make further inquiry with the main lecturer with respect to the areas of placements the students have experience in as well as the extent to which they may have been exposed to the practical application of the concept, especially as this is a practiced base course. I will also apply a short peer discussion technique in which the students can respond to some listed questions and share with their colleagues. This would support both the flow of the session as well as aid in achieving the intended learning objectives.
References
Bain, K, (2004). What the best college teachers do. Accessed 10 April, 2017, from: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/188527.article
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving
students’ learning with effective learning techniques promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 14, (1), 4-58.
Jarvis, P. (2006). Towards a comprehensive theory of human learning (Vol. 1). Psychology
Press.
Kolb, D.A., Rubin, I.M. & Osland, J. (1999). A model of the learning process . In Gibbs, G.
Morgan, A. & Northedge, A. Chapter 6 How Students Learn. In Designing Assessment, Teaching in Higher Education: theory and evidence. H852 course book. Milton Keynes: The Open University.
I think that the issue that you raise about only having regular contact with a small percentage of the full cohort you teach and therefore being unaware of students past experiences, interactions with and knowledge on particular subjects is something that effects a large majority of us as teachers (myself included!) so it is a really interesting theme to pick up on! Therefore, your idea and use of questioning the cohort and getting them to share their past experiences and knowledges about concepts such as the Mental Health Act is an excellent way to quickly gain knowledge about students past experiences. As you mention, I also think your use of questioning in this way is a great way of encouraging students to learn through relating concepts to their own past experiences. I think I am going to use this activity every time I start teaching a new group of students.
This is a good article, Stephen. It is true that quite a number of students are not familiar with the Act and this is something that should be looked into by the Department. Understanding different laws which are relevant to health and social care would be useful as students eventually join the workforce or even they decide to teach. I think the technique that you used seemed appropriate to gauge their understanding of the Act. You could also prepare a paper highlighting the principles of the Act and email to the students before the lecture. Alternatively, you can also devise a short questionnaire to assess their knowledge. You have done well using the questioning method. (Natalia Sali)
by Natalia Sali
It was my first time to give a two-hour lecture to 30 MSc students and I was so relieved to receive good feedback from them. I taught Organisational Culture and Performance Management, the second of the five lectures which are taught by four other lecturers. I needed to focus on the contents and the methods I will use. Deciding on the contents was not that challenging as the course design provided the information on the most important topics. In this blog, I am discussing some useful methods in giving lectures to engage students in their learning. I assumed the role of a facilitator and did this using a variety of approaches. To start with, I asked the students what they remember from the first session so that they can relate the discussion we would be having. I used Powerpoint and my slides contained some texts and images.
For the first activity, I asked the students to work in pair and allocate one minute each to discuss what they know about organisational culture. Then, I asked them to share their ideas they discussed. It was a simple activity but it helped me in gauging their knowledge on the subject as well as in building their confidence to share with other students. As I introduce new concepts, I introduced interactive including working in pairs, working in a group of 6, and consistently asking them questions as I discuss different concepts. Research showed that students only have a 10-minute attention span and so relevant and appropriate activities should be introduced to sustain their participation. I asked students to incorporate in their discussion real-life experiences at the workplace so that they could start thinking of the aspects they can critically analyse for their final say.
It is important to pay attention to both those who are readily able to share and those who are silent. I do this by asking questions such as ‘What do you think of her idea?’, ‘Do you have a similar experience?’, and ‘How about in your setting?’ Such questions promoted active interaction as well as raised new ideas for discussion at the big group. I encouraged students to ask questions which were answered by me and other students. I also signposted them to some relevant reading materials. Signposting is very important because they can read at their own convenience. A few minutes before the end of the session, I asked them to talk to their partner about two things: what they have learned and will take away from the lecture, and one thing they will need to further read on.
It has been said that active learning engages students in the process of learning through activities and/or discussion in class, as opposed to passively listening to an expert. It emphasises higher-order thinking and often involves group work (Bonwell and Eison 1991). Active learning leads to increases in examination performance (Freeman 2014). One framework that I found useful was that of Chi’s (2009), who porposed the Differentiated Overt Learning Activities (DOLA) framework, which divides active learning methods into three modes — active, constructive, or interactive — depending on the students’ overt engagement in them. She hypothesised that of the three modes, interactive learning is the best. Results showed that when students engaged in joint dialogue and constructed knowledge collaboratively, they not only generated knowledge on their own but further benefited from their partners’ feedback and contributions (Meneske et al. 2015). Therefore, I can say that with bit of creativity, lectures can be used for active learning in a supportive, enjoyable session.
References:
Bonwell CC, Eison JA. Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. Washington, DC: George Washington Univ; 1991.
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410-8415.
Meneske et al (2015) Beyond Hands-On: Some active-learning methods are more effective than others. http://chilab.asu.edu/papers/JEE_Selects_NOV.pdf