For several days, my team have prepared the first session: Planning. But that was the big subjects. The main subject that we should focus was ‘How will you promote learning and competence using a classroom and virtual settings?’. When I first met the subject, I was rather embarrassed. I supposed why it is associated to Planning.
In general, there are several methods to plan the course. First, teachers should remind the implement and tools that they are already had. They should assess their competence about their teaching skills and knowledge of their own fields. Those are for teachers’ preparation.
Before the class, students should prepare their class as well. They need to recognize their abilities and levels how much they have already accomplished. Their are several tools to let them notice their level. For example, survey is the easiest way to evaluate themselves. Teacher makes several questions which are criteria of the assessment of each competence. Students answer questions honestly so that teacher can find out their abilities.
Those are the backgrounds that I have before preparing first session. However, doing the project for the first session, my teammates and I realized that the subject ,’How will you promote learning and competence using a classroom and virtual settings?’, includes everything for planning courses and classes. In the subject, teacher should consider their backgrounds also students background. Not only about them, but also they need to following the amendments and laws which are organized by the government. Those are followed in the other article in detail.
There are two environment when teacher can teach; Classroom and Virtual Setting.
In the classroom, it is a real meeting with students and could be also with their parents. It is easy to contact each other in a real class. Teacher should facilitate students to do active learning not passive. Making them take part in the lectures, teachers are able to help improve their social skills and increase their motivation.
For the students who needs special help, teachers have to build the systems and equip some tools to support them. Students who are from completely different culture are not used to new environment. For instance, students who believe certain religion do not eat pork or beef. When they visit a student restaurant first and face that all dishes are made in pork or beef, they will be embarrassed. Teachers should discuss this problem with students also with their colleagues to solve the problem. What I mentioned is included in international and multicultural classroom setting. What’s more, there are students who are disabled, have a mental disease. They should be helped by others not only in the classroom but also in the general daily life. Teachers must consider students who need to be taken care of before heading to the class and counsel them to know how to deal with them. Physically, the educational institution like schools decide students to be supported by individual teacher so that teachers can assist them immediately when they need. Before starting the personal study, counseling with students must be an efficient method to figure out the situation which students are in. According to the result of counseling, teacher can build a personal study plan for students and different criteria to achieve competence of the goal.
To sum up, in the classroom setting, teachers can contact students directly(Face to Face). Teachers should take advantage of everything which can happen in the classroom. Understanding and sympathizing students is the most important part in the classroom setting.
In the virtual setting class, making as same condition in the real classroom is impossible. Virtual setting class is an online class which both teachers and students communicate in front of the monitor, using their keyboard or microphone to interact. Teacher should maximize advantages of the virtual setting and minimize disadvantages of it.
As advantages of virtual setting class, convenience of the class must be increased. Virtual classroom makes teachers and students overcome the limitation of the location and time. Even if they are in the different time zone, both teachers and students can meet online and proceed the courses as well. Also, especially for some adults who are working, they do not have enough time to commute the school. Therefore, virtual class could be alternative to the traditional class which is spent much time. They can take part in the class flexibly thus virtual classroom increase the breadth of opportunity who wants to learn.
However, several disadvantages are existed in the virtual setting classroom. First of all, the individuals who participate in the virtual class should acquire the knowledge how to utilize some programs such as ‘Google doc’ and ‘Skype’. Those are rather simple but students who are in the elementary school and teachers who are not used to digital stuffs like ‘i-pad’ and smartphone are in trouble to deal with the gadgets. Moreover, if teachers and students are accustomed to use IT products, another problem will rise. It is hard for teachers to recognize how students understand the subject well. Interaction could be lacked between a teacher and students so it is possible to draw students to lose their motivation. Self-assessment and discipline is difficult to not only teens but also adults.
To prevent these negative situation in the virtual setting classroom, teachers put a lot of effort to students not to be alone behind the monitor. Regular check and assessment supplements the weak points of the virtual setting class. Before teaching in the virtual environment, let students and teachers get used to the digital stuffs to remove the hindrance of technical problems.
In conclusion, promoting learning and competence using a classroom and virtual setting is not very tough assignment for the teacher. Maximizing advantages and minimizing disadvantages in a classroom and virtual setting is the focal point of the issue to enhance achievement and competence. Teachers must facilitate students fluently not to make them feel different when they are in the classroom and virtual setting.
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