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In this session some different techniques of teaching are used by the teacher to explain one topic which was the teaching methods. In this diary, the teacher’s style of teaching has been reflected step by step.

One day before starting this session Mr. Miran send a video, as an assignment so that we can start a discuss about contents of the video.  Mr. Miran randomly chose students to comment on what had been understood about the themes in the video. As far as I concerned, the video was all about a teacher’s experience in teaching. Clearly, he has passion for his career as a teacher and the students were quiet satisfied from his teaching style. The teacher had 37 years’ experience in teaching teenage learners. He started giving his presentation with a story where firstly the idea of giving choice to students came to his mind. Once, in a school cafeteria, he observed that students loved to have choices on the menu. The teacher thought that he could transfer the freedom of choice to the classroom. Choice has been explained as providing many different activities to students to learn. The activities designed to meet the many diverse learning styles that each student has.

Furthermore, six techniques of teaching had been focused for inspiring students. The first technique is choice. Generally speaking, choice is not to teach, but rather one of the characteristics of a classroom. Other teaching methods are collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity. The aforementioned five techniques are essential 21st century skills students should learn. Moreover, the authentic learning will happen when the students are allowed to engage in the prior five c’s. The students will learn, enjoy and even be inspired by this way. If we wanted to set a classroom based on the five c’s then a shift would need form teacher-centered to student-centered classroom. The teacher becomes a guide, coach, mentor, nurture and inspires. Additionally, he highly recommends teachers love / passion for the subject and care for the students. By love he means to commit passionately for the well-being of the students. In other words, it means to love your students even when they are not likable.

In addition, the teacher advices other techniques such as well-organized, consistent discipline plan, and utilizing technology is effective as well.

Then, after 30 minutes of commenting on the video, Mr Miran started with the definition of teaching method. Teaching methods are a number of innovative techniques / activities and methods accessible for teachers to engage the students and enable them to acquire the required Knowledge and skills.

Next, Mr. Miran identified the learning outcome of this module as the followings:

1. The teacher trainees will be able to Learn some teaching methods so as to apply theories in different fieldworks and connect them in real-life situations.

2. recognize different learner’s needs / abilities, the use of diverse pedagogical methods to meet the individual needs and foster the students learning.

3. differentiate between various pedagogical methods and implement them in practice.

Afterwards, the most common teaching methods had been clarified by Mr. Miran. Also, I am going to write my own reflection and understanding about each of them in detail:

1. Lecturing teaching method:

this is a very common and worldwide applicable way of teaching. With all the methods and variety of teaching strategies, lecturing is still a dominance style of teaching. There are certain points which add positive impact on lecturing method such as teacher’s communication ability. Communication ability means body language which includes: eye contact, gestures, voice, facial expressions and visual message. It’s important that the lecturer should ask the students to take notes and paying attention of what students think, say and do. This method has its own advantageous and disadvantageous. The advantageous are presenting large amount of information in a short time. The auditory learners may enjoy learning via listening. The disadvantageous are presenting large amount of information may confuse the learner. The learners are passive and the teacher controls the classroom. Additionally, some students will lose the information if they couldn’t listen carefully during the lecture. Thus, the disadvantageous outweighs the advantageous because most people learn by doing and practicing what they have already learned. Generally, lecturing can be effective for the other purposes other than teaching. The teachers had better produce learning more than teaching the students. Besides, should the teachers capable of communicating well then teaching will be more effective.

Other common learning methods are seminar, workshops, written assignment, laboratory / field work, graduation project, and work placement or internship.

2. Fishbowl Learning:

Another type of teaching strategy is fishbowl learning. It is a type of discussion where the students who seated inside the ‘fishbowl’ actively participate in the discussion and share their opinions, while students sitting outside the fishbowl listen carefully and take notes. Students take turns these roles, so that they practice being both presenters and listeners in this type of discussion. The discussion is managed by the teacher. The teacher poses a question. After all the students participated and rotated their role in the discussion, they can draw a conclusion for the topic they will have been discussed. The goal of this type of teaching is to make sure all the students actively participate in a discussion, to learn from each other through peer evaluation, promote active listening and group discussion skills.

Next, Mr. Miran applied this method of teaching with us. He suggested a question of how could you engage students and manage your time in a lecture as well? The question was quiet relevant and related to us, because already I wanted to know more about time management and students’ engagement at the same time. Here is the conclusion of the group discussion:

Firstly, send the lecture materials to the students the day before. Secondly, start the class with some attention grabbers so that the students feel you care about them, then review the last lecture so as to connect it with the new one. Thirdly, plan the lecture time earlier. Taking breaks during the lecture and asking questions to bring their attention back. Lastly, at the end of each session pinpoint the most important points to sort out the information and timing for different activities.

3. Authentic learning

which means learning through applying knowledge in real life situations and contexts. Authentic learning helps the students to be engaged with solving real-world problems. The teacher as a guider can provide questions and instruct the students to search, think and connect with other learner communities so as to inquire the result.

4. gamification and game-based learning:

Gamification is turning the learning process as a whole into a game. At the same time, game-based learning is turning one part of learning into a game. Both ways could be fun, engaging and learning will occur at the same time.

5. Flipped Classroom:

Flipped classroom is another choice which could be used to actively engage the student. I would like to explain what does flipped classroom mean. Flipped learning is a type of blended learning where students are introduced to the lecture material at home and practice working through it at school. The teacher can send a video or a paper with some questions about the same subject. Thus, we can turn the classroom into a discussion place. This is a contrary of the traditional learning which introduces new subject at school, then assigning homework to complete by the students independently at home.

This teaching method has many advantageous such as students can learn at their own pace, especially for those students who are unfamiliar with the subject can pause, re-watch and look for another source. Students can engage when most alert and have breaks when needed.

6. Problem-based learning (PBL)

PBL is another applicable teaching method. It is a student-centered pedagogy because students learn about the subject through the experience of solving an open-ended problem existed in target material. The goal of PBL include allowing students develop problem solving skills in the future, understand the subject on a deeper level, effective collaboration skills etc.

The teacher guides the students through the process of problem solving. Firstly, the teacher can identify the problem clearly to the students and facilitate in structuring the problem. Secondly, the teacher can instruct the students to set an instructional plan and Thirdly, specify a duration for carrying out the whole task.  Finally, helping students to identify resources needed and expecting end product is important.

In Conclusion, to make the process of teaching fun and productive, teachers should use diverse teaching methods in the classroom. As mentioned before, varied teaching methods is a must that teachers can’t avoid because of the learners’ different style of learning.

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At first Mr. Miran started the session with the question of ‘the 21st century skills? What he meant by this question was to raise our awareness about the modern skills that had better prepare the students for it. In my opinion, communication is one of the most significance skills, team work, language skills to self-improve, then ability in problem solving, creativity, IT skills and ability to be on time.

Mr. Miran classified the new skills into three categories such as learning skills (4Cs) (critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication), literacy skills (IMT) (information, media and technology literacy) and life skills (FLIPS) (flexibility, leadership, imitative, productivity and social skills). All these skills are required in the market place. This means that, it should be in the teachers’ objectives to work on those aforementioned skills and the students should satisfy the needs of labor market. In other words, it must be in the mission and vision of universities to have strategic objectives in providing the soft skills for labor market, using digital tools in the universities.

When I consider the 21st century skills, the first thing comes to mind is that only through the student-centered classroom these outcomes can be achieved. If we want to produce students who are good critical, creative thinkers and problem solvers, then SCA should be applied. Confidence in knowledge and skills is significant to get jobs in labor market. Students have to be trained on real life skills if we want their success in future careers. The previous grading system won’t guarantee the students success. Entrepreneurs don’t give jobs to those who did well in memorization and getting good grades, but rather they need communication, language, IT and real life skills. Therefore, the traditional method of teaching won’t make productive learners.

What interests me the most during sessions is the Teacher-Talk Time and Student-talk Time which is quiet the same. This way of teaching can keep our focus on the subjects as long as the teachers discuss the important points for nearly ten minutes then allow the students to comment and exemplify about the same topic.

Mr. Miran showed a picture of a learning pyramid where the best and most effective way of learning was to teach others and the worst way of learning is through lecturing. Lecturing only 5% of the information received but 90% of the knowledge learned through teaching others. There are also, more and less effective methods of leaning such as practice doing 75%, discussion 50%and demonstration 3%. Then, Mr. Miran shared his ideas about the teachers’ questions and comments. What is new to me, is teachers listen carefully to the students’ questions and take notes.

There were some other skills which mentioned by teacher trainees such as Language and writing skills. As long as English language is the language of science, computers, tourism, media, internet and the international communication, so, learning English language creates many job opportunities and enhances our cognitive and analytical abilities. What hurts me most is that the Kurdish learners couldn’t make use the language firstly, to progresses in their major fields, secondly, to share their knowledge into their mother language. Our universities should work on doing more research and projects in Kurdish language. I other words, we can add more academic sources into the libraries if the universities work on publishing researches in Kurdish language.

After the teacher students shared their comments and question, Dr. Karwan and Mr. Miran answered the questions, also, added their view on the different comments. This is a very interesting way to communicate with the students because we can learn based on our needs. Another point which is worth considering was Mr. Miran’s view about student-centered and teacher-centered approach. He clearly stated that we can’t apply student-centered approach in some cases, instead the environment, situation and the field of study will decide whether you can use SCA or TCA.

Another topic of the session was three main elements of creative pedagogy which were creative teaching, teaching for creativity and creative learning. It depends on the teacher’s role to design an imaginative and innovative approach to make the process of learning fun and effective. Firstly, the teacher had better update, engage and be passionate about the subject he/she is teaching then these positive vibes will transfer to the students. In teaching for creativity, the students’ creative abilities are worth encouraging. The teacher must provide opportunities to develop different capacities. Furthermore, the teacher need to give the sense of ownership and engage the students with the module. In creative learning, the students experience is focused on. Learning process produced through questioning, inquiring, searching and experiments. Learners must have the opportunities to be creative, innovative and work on their original thinking or ideas.

There are certain key elements of pedagogy which make teaching effective. Firstly, changing class activities and method of teaching in each classes. Additionally, certain teaching methods could be used depending on the nature of the module. Secondly, there are certain contexts that affect the chosen methods for example, culture, climate and economy. Therefore, the effective teaching element won’t work it doesn’t consider in many contexts. Thirdly, the teacher should be flexible in applying different methods of teaching, and considering the environment of teaching. If the supposed teaching method didn’t work, the teacher could utilize the different plan of teaching.

This view point and changing plans is exactly opposite of the teachers from the previous model. From the previous model which was about SCA, the teachers were insisted on applying SCA as one of the most effective way of learning. They said that, it’s predictable that you would be resisted by the students and the department but there is no alternative for SCA.

Overall, Learning occurs if the teacher used diverse methods for the different types of learning styles. The teacher should have high expectations in considering the major key elements of successful pedagogy such as, students background / needs, teaching context, strategy of teaching.

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Dr. Karwan and Mr. Miran are going to teach us this session. This is the second module that would be managed by two teachers. The teamwork teaching allows for more individualized needs of teacher students at a different academic levels. It is a powerful way of collaboration between students and staff alike. At the beginning of the session I didn’t see such a teamwork between the two teachers. There were not any visual aids to guide us were we are heading to. Thus, the class introduction was blurred, and I heard some negativity. Although, most of the things were true, but negativity is not a characteristics of a good teacher.

Then, Mr. Miran shared a question as an attention grabber. The question was ‘what does pedagogy mean to you? And there were three choices for this question, which most of the students answered with the choice of the ‘Art of teaching’ this definition covers the other two choices. Pedagogy comes down to studying teaching methods. While each teacher has a different pedagogical approach to learning in the classroom, they should also consider the most effective learning environment for each individual student. In other words, everything starts with the mindset of the teacher. If the teacher understands his/her position as a facilitator, guide and mentor, then, he/she would be able to create a learning environment where he/she can use different teaching methods based on individual students’ needs.

The next question was ‘what would you expect to learn from innovative pedagogy & assessment module? The terms ‘innovative’ was new to me because we haven’t mentioned it before. As far as I am concerned, innovative pedagogy is trying to achieve many new skills to its learners which can meet the students need to succeed in life and work. As long as we apply student-centered approach so the tools to assess students must be differing from the traditional approach of teaching. Later, Dr. Karwan hinted that assessment can be used at the begging of the course to evaluate the students level. But, he confused us with assessment tools for scientific level of the students and their behavior. I think at university there is some special lesson to manage the students’ behavior such as professional skills. Therefore, teachers could only engage on the academic aspect of the students not their behavior. I hope, we would learn more about assessment tools in the next sessions.

Then, the teacher students had been allowed to speak. Dr. Karwan before answering the question reminded us on the significance of note taking as it is one of the characteristics of students. He added that the teacher should oblige the students to take notes while listening. I do agree with him because students should actively engage during classes. Dr. Karwan was talking from experience and compared European universities with universities in Kurdistan, he said that our students don’t have enough equipment. Instead, the only thing they have is teachers respect and attitude towards them. So, teachers have to be a good mentor for their students.

Again students were allowed to talk for the second time. Most of the students believed that there is a paradox between this module and previous one. Personally, I don’t see a paradox, but rather two different perspectives for the process of teaching and learning. These teachers have been exposed to the same system of education, but with two different outcomes. Some of the teacher trainees see the education system and the learners as hinder in front of applying the student-centered approach. But, I think the biggest challenge is both the teachers’ and students’ mindset. If there were not necessary rules and regulations to support this strong process, then, it doesn’t mean we should wait. Actually, even small baby steps could be effective. The teachers must change their focus from teaching to learning. Sometimes, the problem starts with the teacher who can’t update him/herself with the current improvements.

After the break Mr. Miran gave his opinion about the conflicting ideas between teacher-centered and student-centered approach. He explained that they support SCA so as to actively engage the learners. He added that, teaching is something and learning is another thing, afterall, we need rules and regulations in the classroom to manage the process. Additionally, we need more time and culture to teach students in taking responsibility in their own learning. Thus, a well-organized, consistent regulations is important to enhance responsibility and for better learning outcomes. All these disciplines, rules and regulations designed for the well-being of the students.

After nearly two hours of starting the session we had been informed about the main themes of this module. Generally, we are going to study teaching methods, assessment tools and creating learning environment. Mr. Miran also explained each theme briefly which was so helpful to understand because of the visual aids. What was so interesting to me was that at the end of this module the teacher students would be familiarized with the twenty first century skills. Another learning outcome of this module is that we can recognize individual students’ ability and needs to become a lifelong learner. Besides, the teacher trainees will be able to assess whether the students learned or not. Finally, we would learn on how to create an effective environment for students. Later, Mr. Miran showed some digital tools such as Virtual Reality, Dualingo and Facial Recognition which has been used in western universities so as to facilitate and see the practical side of the knowledge. With the lack of support, using such digital tools is inapplicable, thus, other applicable tools should have been suggested.

Finally, this session was a general idea about the module, teachers experience and all the obstacles that the teachers might face if they want to apply Student-centered approach.