You are on page 1of 5

PG5003

Teaching and Learning Module for Graduate Studies.

Assessment

Alejandro Manteiga Brea


Student Number:
My experience as a beginner teacher during this year has been very enriching for me. I
discovered the magic of teaching, and it has been great to discover that I liked very much. The
teaching and learning module for graduate students has given me the necessary keys to face
the classes with more security in myself, being able to show my students how much I love
Archaeology.

These are some examples from my teaching showing some of the aspects that we covered
in our seminars this year.

• To raise the learning as a challenge and not as an obligation:

That means requiring students with a participatory learning, a constructive learning, not
passive. It is necessary to challenge them. To move the students to discuss questions. To bring
them situations that demand to consider different alternatives to the problems, that they should
need to compete for obtaining the solutions.
We have to convert learning into something unknown but desirable. The learning is a daily
and common fact; this means that we have to place it in the natural orbit of the life, and not as
something external or imposed to the students. We must present it as something ordinary and
part of their own human being. It is very important to us as teachers, to learn from them, and to
recognize that auto esteem increases when the lessons that we are teaching them, are
considered profits instead of prizes. We have to teach them in a way, that the things that they
are learning from us turns out to be attractive and interesting.

• The learning is a constant act of communication, not of information or


instruction.

Nobody can achieve a permanent attention in anything in what the person is not involved
personally, not even the one who has high levels of values. In the latter case, the attention
depends of that the fact turns into something related to the person into some aspect, even if that
happens in a very distant way, as a transcendent purpose.
All the members of the educational process are part of the learning process, which is
constant and continuous. We must be conscious that without communication there is no
learning. The learning process is the result of a successful communication between the teacher
and the student.
We have to motivate the learning from the basic and primary motivations (such as obligation
or need), creating secondary and complex motivations in the students (such as interest in the
knowledge and recognition), from the first ones.
Our labour is to diagnose over what motivations predominate in the classroom, and to make
discover in the student that the motivations that we propose could be perfectly assumed for
them inside their group.

• To avoid turn the teacher into a producer of stimuli, a kind of screen without
depth to which it is enough to look to know.

It is necessary to bear this in mind because the students are strongly linked to a visual way
of perception of the reality, which means that they have all the advantages (as the multiplicity or
the parallelism of different stimuli), but also all the disadvantages (as the superficiality and
temporality) necessary for the memory, including the lack of energy or passiveness (to see is to
receive not to act). On the other hand, the learning by means of the reading is not a purely
visual act. This type of learning is not a passive way to use their visual perception, if we promote
an active reading. We have to help them to relate the concepts that are reading with
experiences that form part of their knowledge.

Both the reading and any other way that needs the appraisal or use of the time and of a
more attentive examination (the depth or perspective), is going to facilitate the catch of the
different dimensions of a topic, and not only their existence. These are means adapted to
eliminate the passiveness and to activate a series of mental mechanisms (skills). This will give
"body" and not only "image" to the experience. While more levels has an experience, more
levels will be recorded. It will be easier to be remembered, and more of them will use the
"transfer" or application of general learning strategies to different topics.

The process of communication is an interactive process in which the student also expresses
messages towards the teacher. It is, therefore, a bidirectional communication that must be in
use on the part of the teacher as source of information for detecting failures in our educational
labour, to correct lacks of information of the students and to confirm the attainment of the
proposed aims.
I believe that as a first year Arts Faculty course the subject material should fulfil three basic
criteria, and that it is incumbent on the tutors to accomplish this:

• It should represent an increase in sophistication in terms of the diversity of presentation,


and challenge of content, in comparison to the secondary level to which the students
have been exposed prior to their entry into tertiary education.

• It should provide an informative grounding in the subject as both a stand alone module
within the first year curriculum and, perhaps more importantly, as a preview of what the
subject will offer to those who have already decided to study Archaeology, but are
unaware of the diversity of modules, topics, periods on offer within the module, and also
the different choices for second and third years students.

• For those students who had originally chosen to take Archaeology in the first year as a
third or fourth subject, it should be challenging and informative enough to warrant their
reconsideration of Archaeology, as perhaps a subject that they might choose to
continue studying in second year, as part of either a joint or single honours degree.

It is important for us as tutors to motivate our students in the learning of the Archaeology,
the motivation is a condition indissolubly tied to the success in any activity. It is very necessary
to know the situation that the students of a career present at the beginning of their academic
experience, with regard to their motivation for the study of the profession. This knowledge will
allow working on solving the problems that they present in the matter, as a form of guaranteeing
a good academic performance in the students, as well as possibilities of success in their future
professional life.
The student motivated by his studies will reach the success without any doubts, recovering
from difficulties, if there are some. The motivation will optimize his capacities, and is going to be
able to develop solid professional intentions. The insufficiently motivated student even if
possesses suitable capacity, will have his professional future in danger.

It is necessary to offer to the first year student’s alternative activities of orientation as


complement of these disciplines and courses, which in the first year could bring more ideas to
the student towards their professional future. This will help to improve the mental disposition of
the students towards their studies and future profession.

The aim of these courses is to help students with their academic difficulties. But it is hard to
discover doubts, mistakes, and problems of the students without their active participation in
tutorials, and without assessing their chances of learning on a continuous basis.
The method of teaching in small groups is more designed to help students, in which these
have a much greater prominence and can develop a great activity. Most teaching techniques in
small groups consist of activities focusing on the students, where a maximum participation of
the same ones is desiderable, but it's hard to involve students in first year, due to fear of
mistakes, the little knowledge, and their own lack of security. It is important to facilitate their
intervention making them feel comfortable in tutorials, inviting them to participate, reinforcing
their auto esteem by valuing their responses.

The limited groups allow an attention and a more personalized communication, with a major
degree of individualization in the attention delivered to the student. This method of teaching is
designed to cover different objectives:

1. Learning to think about a precise issue.


2. Work and seek information about one specific topic, and develop a coherent
statement.

3. Trying to analyze the problems and learn how to think and extract conclusions.

The discussion of various topics, among all, at the same level, helped to expose and
understand the issues with more clarity, bringing new ideas and viewpoints that enriched the
tutorials.

By using MSc students to present the tutorials, not only can the first year Arts students
benefit from additional contemporary information that the tutor may have covered through their
own undergraduate and postgraduate study, but the undergraduate students are also exposed
to the enthusiasm for the subject which has driven the tutor on through their own tertiary
education up to and including their present MSc research. This brings a fantastic opportunity to
teach for the MSc students as well, being the first approach to the teaching experience for most
of them, which is going to be a usual practice for those who want to pursue an academic career.

You might also like