Equality and diversity

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tina Gale on April 22, 2013 at 11:56am

Hi Rebecca

 

I think it helps to build up a better two-way learning  experience also.

Plus the youngsters need to be motivated and feel that their outside-college-world is respected by us, as much as we want them to respect ours - if that makes sense?

 

Tina

 

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Permalink Reply by Lyndise Tarbuck on April 22, 2013 at 1:06pm

Hi Tina, Rebecca & Heather,

Thats really interesting how you use mobile phones within your sessions, I've always thought of mobiles as disruptive.  Fortunately as an HE teacher I don't generally have the problem of students abusing use of their mobiles, its usually a Mum saying that its a phonecall from their childs school.

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Permalink Reply by Lyndise Tarbuck on April 22, 2013 at 1:15pm

Hi Rebecca,

I believe that taking the risk to trust your students is exceptionally Rogerian of you.  By offering this condition to your students it encourages them to take responsibility for themselves, and creates an atmosphere of equality within the classroom, between yourself as Teacher, or Facilitator as Rogers would describe you, and the learners.  

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Permalink Reply by Stuart Eccles-skinner on April 23, 2013 at 6:38am

Hi. I too let the students use phones/pads. I even encourage it at times. I have to monitor their usage given that once students know they can use them they feel a little too free with them. I've caught someone loading a game of candy crush before. But If I'm trying to teach the students something they could possibly struggle to recall in their own time or misinterpret with negative results, having sound recording, picture or a video of an example can be brilliant for them.

Plus it can be very useful in a small teaching environment to be able to research information without the need for computers.

Stu

Permalink Reply by Rebecca Ann Bickerton on April 26, 2013 at 4:55am

Hi Lyndise

Ref being a Rogerian - I am now going to refer to myself as RtR - Rebecca the Rogerian! Equality between learners and the teacher is, I believe, essential in maintaining the kind of supportive, trust filled environment that enables language learning to take place. Being unable to speak the language of your country of residence makes you vulnerable. Removing barriers allows learners to feel relaxed and take risks, make mistakes.I do view myself as an enabler - equal in status to my learners.

Permalink Reply by mark slight on April 23, 2013 at 5:56am

 

Hi Lyndise,

At this centre the use of mobiles is not encouraged at all and actually frowned upon in classroom and workshop activities, we have sufficient PC's here for each learner to go onto to so any research is done in this manor again when operating machinery lathes, drilling or welding it certainly becomes a safety issue as well and as you say they are very disruptive and can get damaged in the workshop

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Permalink Reply by Lyndise Tarbuck on April 23, 2013 at 6:12am

Hiya Mark,

I must admit that phones or even PC's don't really have a place within my lessons aswell.  A lot of the learning is about self exploration and skills development through group and one to one discussions.  So far, I can't see a place for PC's or phones within the development of an interpersonal/intrapersonal discipline.

I would welcome it if somebody can prove me wrong. 

Permalink Reply by Tom TX Welham on May 6, 2013 at 10:30am

Hi Mark - is that from your department's official info?

I think perhaps a degree of discretion (depending on the course) will suffice - in other cases that people have mentioned in this forum it may be quicker and easier to access a nugget of information quickly via mobile phone - it may be the best solution.  I have noticed though in the sessions that I've been involved in that students are constantly checking for messages and notifications on Facebook etc.  Perhaps establishing ground rules at the start and reasoning with learners that the world won't stop spinning just because they've haven't responded to a text message about a house party next weekend for over an hour will stop it from becoming a distraction. If it is a continuing problem, then you could escalate it, but in the mean time- let's try to get them exercising self discipline!

Permalink Reply by Susan Walsham on April 23, 2013 at 10:58am

Hi all, many thanks for the hints and tips regarding dominating and needy learners. Some suggestions are really good but hard to adapt to teaching IT. I now getting the learners to take responsibility for their reflection of the session, getting them to plan their next session at the same time and evidencing  their work (in small steps at the moment). I try to share my time equally amongst the learners, however still trying to reduce the time spent with needy learners. Some really good suggestions –I am trying them out!

I had a learner walk out yesterday due to frustration from her own ability, however she did come back! How would you deal with this? When she came back my time was then spent with her while other learners suffered. I felt I dealt with this professionally, however was I diverse in my approach to all other learners?

I have a question I would like to ask you all, how are you diverse in your resources?

Sue

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Permalink Reply by mark slight on April 23, 2013 at 12:56pm

Hi Sue 

I recently had a learner nearly walk out through frustration and they were on their final welding assessment, the first I knew about it was another learner telling me he was leaving as I was busy with yet another learner (great to be in demand), I managed to stop him from leaving and calmed them down just by talking quietly to them, removing them from the area and asking very simple questions as to what the problem was and between the two of us it was resolved, some of the frustration was his peers telling him "he shouldn't do it the way he was doing it" and some was actually my fault for not giving or making sure that he fully understood the task at hand. (Bad Teacher)......... I must say that I have a very good rapport with this group so this was quite easily dealt with but this is the type of approach I would use 

Mark

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Permalink Reply by mark slight on April 23, 2013 at 1:32pm

The second part Is a hard call Sue as it becomes an issue of morals, sure you want to help them but they cant have all your time as the rest suffer and could become demoralised as well remember Maslow's  hierarchy of needs, how I tend to deal with this is by getting the learner to back track to an area where they were more confident with then get them to restart again ............ giving you time to deal with other learners occasionally going back to make sure that they are on track with the task at hand with loads of support, praise and guidance to build up the esteem again.

Mark

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Permalink Reply by Simon Warne on April 24, 2013 at 3:10pm

Hi Mark and Sue

The confidence of the learner is so important and you are right that praise and guidance are necessary to build up self esteem. It is interesting that Sue's student lost confidence in her ability. I have been reading Carol Dweck 'Self-Theories' and she makes an extremely important point about the kind of praise that we give our learners. She suggests that we can sometimes be too keen to praise and reward ability and intelligence. This sounds sensible, but her point is that this can lead to learners not valuing effort. Valuing Effort, she discusses allows learners not to give up on difficult tasks.

Maybe we could be aware that some learners may value ability above effort leading them to struggle to find motivation in more challenging tasks - they believe that they do not have the ability to achieve the task before they have even attempted it. 

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