Effective Learning and Teaching

Key Principles
The overall purpose of this session is:
• To affirm your own good practices
• To develop self-reflection on them
• To identify 4 key principles of effective
teaching:
▫ Self-reflection and evaluation
▫ Effective planning
▫ Effective communication
▫ Effective assessment
The 4 purposes of self-evaluation are:
• 1. To identify our strengths
• 2. Minimise our weaknesses
• 3. Plan ahead
• 4. Evaluate the outcomes of this planning
• Why? Because:
▫ Teaching can be a solitary activity
▫ Teaching is a moral activity
▫ Teaching is a professional activity: standards are
involved.
• HOWEVER:
However:
• If people simply reflect on their own, there will
be no significant change.
(Boyd, 1995)

• A simple enough statement, but having profound

implications for:
▫ Objectivity (rendering the evaluation objective)
▫ Validity (rendering the evaluation valid)
▫ Transferability (rendering our teaching better)
Sources for self-reflection include:
• A reflective diary • Questionnaires
• Closure (transitional and
• Focus groups final)
• Other groups • One minute papers
• Interviews • Think/Pair/Share
exercises
• Critical friendship • The muddiest point
• Observation • One sentence summaries
• http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/in
• Mentoring tranet/committees/FacDevCo
m/guidebk/teachtip/assess-2.
htm
Reflect, Identify, Act, Evaluate
• Reflect: what is happening in my practice?
• Identify: where is this happening?
• Act: what could be done to improve
practice?
• Evaluate: what evidence could be used to
validate my practice?
Criteria for self-evaluation include:
• Those generically identified in the scholarship of
learning and teaching
• Those contained in Framework Standards
• Those contained in observation forms
• Those identified through:
▫ peer observation
▫ critical friendship and
▫ mentoring
Pause Time:
• Any questions, comments or queries?

• Common Weaknesses (but turn each

into a positive):
At the start:
• An absence of learning outcomes
• Unclear learning outcomes
• Few if any links to prior learning
• Inattention to the environment for learning
• Teacher dominance from the beginning: one is
not going to deviate from this
• Assuming too much learner knowledge
As class progresses:
• Imbalance between content and processes
• Losing sight of purpose: which is???
• Delivering content in an undifferentiated
manner (very important/less important)
• No formative learning (assessment): what has
been understood/what not?
• Limited interaction
Leaving students out
• Ineffective pacing
• Explaining is imprecise
• Absence of wait time: thinking time
• Whole class/didactic teaching
• Not dwelling on complexities:
▫ ‘This is complex…’
▫ ‘Could anyone explain why it is complex?’
▫ ‘It is ALSO complex because…’
▫ ‘Do you understand this now?’
▫ ‘Who could summarise?’
Effective teaching defined:
• ‘Effective teaching refers to the extent to which the
teacher employed learning outcomes successfully to
bring about the intended outcomes for …the programme
of study’.
(Kyriacou, 1995)

• ‘…effective teachers employ a range of assessment

methods and techniques to monitor… understanding….’
(Hay-Mc Ber, 2000)
Learning Outcomes
• The definition above, emphasising learning
outcomes, takes us forward to the next essential,
which is planning for learning.
• In the context of student-centred learning, a
learning outcomes model is strongly advocated
internationally.
• So what are learning outcomes?