Teacher Responsibilities
As the term Teacher is well and highly respected amongst individuals, we have huge responsibilities to meet. We have a huge responsibility in terms of developing curriculums, lesson plans and deliver those lessons to our students either individually or in groups. Not only delivery is our responsibility but we keep track of the progressive report of our students and we deal with them case by case and if needed we also involve parents or guardian for betterment of student’s educational optimization. Classroom environment, whether it is online or face to face, we need to ensure the safe and respectful environment for everyone. Hence this will optimize students love for learning and develop high capabilities of learning. Our duties also include assigning homework’s, grading examinations and using software such as premium to get students deserving marks and grades. We need to engage our students in learning, whether it’s an open distance flexible learning or face to face learning. These are synchronous and asynchronous approaches we create to involve everyone. We play a very crucial role in shaping lives of young people. We become their inspiration and we do motivate them to make positive impact in world around them. These are the responsibilities, duty and our job towards our students.
Teaching Objectives
As a lecturer, our utmost objective is to impart our knowledge to our students in their interest of learning. We intend to transfer our knowledge to our students and we evaluate them regularly as per our unit descriptors. We expect a good outcome from them and we expect them to learn things to their best so that the purpose of their schooling is achieved. The reason to start a program is to become something in life and we have expectation from them to achieve this. Their success is a way we evaluate ourselves and the students pass rate is considered a medium for our evaluation. In our College (CEST), Fiji National University, we have started an approach to evaluate our students after their graduation and making sure they get a work placement.
Learning Techniques
We are using as many ways possible to get in touch with our students and during the pandemic, we have learnt a lot. Face to face is an old school method of teaching, but as we progress, we have come to an Open Distance and Flexible Learning. At the very moment, I am teaching my students online with Universities e-learning platform which is Moodle and we normally have zoom lectures, whereby we discuss lecture notes (synchronous approach). I have created a habit of leniency towards learning during this pandemic as most of our students didn’t have mobile data and some part of Vitilevu it is hard to reach network always. On Moodle, I create discussion forums where and divide students into groups for project and case studies. Creating asynchronous learning environment gives students a confident in learning that things can be done online and in much convenient way. However, I always have zoom lectures (synchronous approach) to involve students and keep their track on the course. For submission of files, we let students do the hand writing submissions either with Jpeg format or PDF formatted files. Thus, I have noticed, in Pacific, it was a norm to walk into a university every day for learning, where as in some parts of the world they already adapted online learning environment before this pandemic even started. We are so glad to have this communication skill for Open Distance and Flexible Learning course whereby all the teachers in our region can adapt to different ways of conducting their classes now.
I totally agree with you since there was no plan as how we will be conducting lectures and how assessments will be done. It was so sudden that even students were not informed as how courses will be done.
Hi Arvinesh
If I am correct, you are a professional as in teaching higher (secondary school). Your concerns are truly amazing and the hard work you have done to reach your students during this pandemic and the methods or platform you use to get in touch with your students especially during this pandemic is a great work done as a teacher.
As a Teacher, we need to develop curriculum and lesson plans, and present those lessons to their students, individually or in groups. We have to track the progress of the students and create reports to inform parents about their progress. Teachers are responsible for maintaining a safe and respectful classroom environment in order to optimize student capabilities and develop their love of learning in class or online. We have used Zoom, Google classroom, Viber, Teams, FB, and Moodle to get connected to our children to deliver quality lessons. In some cases teachers have done home visits to see their students to deliver the notes/activities.
My job as a teacher is to help students learn by imparting knowledge to them and by setting up a situation in which students can learn efficiently.
Every teacher aspires to create a memorable, meaningful, and engaging experience which results in high level of students sources and satisfaction, in addition to providing students with the tools they need to achieve their education and carrier goals.
I would like my students to successfully achieve their goals in education, and to be successful in life, by making the content in class relatable and making it applicable to the real world.
Active Learning is an approach to instructions that involves actively engaging students with the source material through discussions, problem solving, case studies, role play and other materials.
Listed below are Active Learning Techniques I would employ for Online Course in Synchronous environment; One- minute Paper, Case-based learning, Question polls(clicker question), structured debates, and Think-Pair-Share. Synchronous classes run in relation with students and instructors attending together from different location.
Asynchronous classes run on a more relaxed schedule with students assessing class materials during different hours and from different locations.
The Active Learning Technique I would employ would be; Peer-Assessment and Virtual gallery walk.
Fascinating perspectives and experiences have been shared so far. One important aspect that seems to be missing from the preceding discourse is the element of self-reflection - it is essential to ask your students to reflect on their learning.
Self-reflection is the key to learning. Students should make reflection a regular part of their learning journey. Here are two templates you may use to get your students started with self-reflection: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WXdDCHRrKH3BUCmXF6j-NdJF-NaIfJ7G
To some extent I also agree with your opinion Sisilia, because the fact can not be ignored that there will be some students who will be needing some real time learning
The role of the teacher is to inspire, motivate, encourage and educate the learner. The ultimate goal of teaching is to give learning. Students’ willingness to learn is critical to learning new concepts, principles and skills. Improve quality learning, work for the benefit of the entire community, learn on the go, improve and maintain their well-being. Active learning engages students in learning with activities such as reading, writing, discussion, and problem-solving that facilitate lesson content analysis, integration, and evaluation. Active learning in the classroom also provides students with an informal opportunity to give feedback on how well they understand the material. Examples of active learning activities include brainstorming, discussion, education, journaling, group work, intensive listening, questions, note-taking, comments, and role-playing. I would prefer to offer both learning activities synchronous and asynchronous because when all students study together, they feel a stronger sense of community and connection with their classmates. They are more engaged in their learning with a greater sense of collaboration.
The personal relationship between the student and the teacher creates a stronger sense of community and reduces the feeling of isolation. A more sensitive exchange between students and teachers also prevents misunderstandings.
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To my understanding and in summary the job of the teacher is to create a conducive environment for leaning and using it to ensure that the learning outcomes are met.
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Students to gain a beneficial learning experience
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For synchronous I would employ tools such as zoom which encourages active participation and for asynchronous I would prefer to use email as it is more formal and professional.
Could you further elaborate on how you are actually going to “be simplifying the learning process so that students can get the most out of what is been taught.”
I suggest a self-reflection on the instructors part also.
As a teacher, I think my job does not only surrounds the concept of teaching. It focus on parenting, planning, motivating, facilitating, change agent, assessing, refocusing, reorganizing, restructuring, providing feedback, giving direction to the way forward, improving the setting, counselling, nursing, mentoring, guiding, piloting, engineering, doctoring and one can think of so many terms. It basically, training individuals to be able to face the real world which lies ahead of them.
The students should develop the ‘live saving skills’ from the content so that they are able to face any situation they are in. I would not depend on any one active learning techniques for both environments because learning techniques will keep changing depending on the background of the learners.
Well explained. Sir, you have based your discussions from your experience. Thus, our experience being a teacher helps us answer this question.
The role of teacher well defined. I believe we want to train the learners to be marketable and critical to all situations and define a fair and square opportunities for them in the world where formal learning (to some extend) stops and informal learning begins
@geeta.krishna I use very similar tools for teaching and communicating too. When power and connectivity are working, course delivery and interactive learning and teaching can be conducted quite easily online with Zoom, Moodle and Viber. The capability to record sessions for later use is practical and a good example of useful asynchronous Learning and teaching.
As a educator, my job is not only to teach but to make my students explore themselves in their interest field. The students should be able to learn both physically and mentally controlling of their learning abilities and know what are good for them in their future. If looking at the synchronous of learning for my students then it will be better for me to have some online zoom classes that can make the students to have face to face involvement in the classroom. Whereas the asynchronous will be that because of the poor network or some students who may not be able to be in the online classes can miss out their golden opportunities of learning and as well with teachers correspondence.
As a teacher my job is to nurture the learning process so that my learner’s objective is achieved. For this to succeed, there needs to be a structure in place upon which a combination of tools and strategies can then be utilized to support the learning and teaching process. This process requires planning, implementation of the plans, and a continuous review of the plans to determine what worked well and what could be improved. The target student group and their background knowledge as well as experience will contribute to the learning environment that I as the teacher can incorporate to build a sense of community that is safe, inclusive, and respectful to all. My role in the life of learner, for the duration that they are with me is vital because I can impact positively not just in their learning of the course material which is medicine, but also in soft skill development and personal growth. I am mindful of my conduct during online academic interactions with my students. I avoid sarcasm, my tone and language are gentle yet firm, respectful, and encouraging as well as kind. I try to role model how I would expect them to treat their patients and colleagues. Being punctual to class, timely with submission of due course work, being considerate in my written and oral communication with fellow students and faculty, demonstrating compassion, leadership and being ethical are some examples of soft skills that I consciously role model and integrate in my teaching encounters.
I have had students tell me years after completing my course that they remembered how interactive my teaching sessions were when demonstrating clinical skills. They were practical, novel, and always required student participation in informal settings. They were fun and rewards/prizes were sometimes included as incentives. I would like my students to safe, respected, included, and valued. For this to occur, clear objectives of and for learning needs to be outline and communicated from the very beginning. Other requirements that would support my student’s learning would be that the learning environment needs to be safe. The students need to feel respected and treated equally. Everyone gets a turn to be the simulated/mock patient as well as the treating mock doctor. Everyone gets the opportunity to say something positive and something to improve on about their contribution as well as their classmate’s performance. There needs to be clear learning objectives with clear student tasks. There needs to be available UpToDate evidence based and relevant resources that the students can access. There needs to be timely feedback and dialogue with the opportunity to discuss issues for clarification.
My proposed active learning techniques:
Synchronous Environment - Zoom is by far my most used tool. Viber and WhatsApp also useful for urgent notifications and contacting student groups to check their mail or reminders to come online.
Asynchronous Environment - Moodle Platform.
Synchronous: Zoom:
Familiar with this tool
- Faculty access to premium account
- Breakout rooms with whiteboard features, screensharing, live chat, and able to record for later review
- Breakout rooms can be used for Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share and Peer Assessments. * Case-based interactive discussions can also occur in small group work in break out rooms.
- Main rooms can be used for PowerPoint presentations, and these can also be interactive with questions polls used throughout the presentation.
- All these sessions can be recorded, and links posted in Moodle for asynchronous use later.
The reason for the above selection is that as the course coordinator, I am familiar with these tools and have used them regularly with positive feedback. There is also a faculty community effort in mastering teaching online with similar tools and this has contributed positively to my L&T experience.
Asynchronous: Moodle Platform
- Most familiar with this tool
- Great for outlining course programme, content, schedules, marking rubrics, forum board discussions, submission of assignments and conducting online exam quizzes and written papers
@danialmaharaj it was a delight to read your forum submission! You mentioned relevant points that resonate with me but I had written up so much already and didn’t feel it appropriate to keep writing! Thank you for your contribution.
As a teacher, my job is to teach my students and help them learn and understand the subject being taught.
I would like my students to understand on what I am trying to teach them.
Synchronous
Zoom - involves the live discussion between students.
Asynchronous
Making a PowerPoint presentation and video to support or enhance on what I am trying to get across to the students
Many people can describe the job role of a teacher in various ways. To my understanding, the primary role of a teacher is to develop curriculum, prepare lessons plan and then deliver the lessons to the students. The teacher is believed to influence the students towards learning, create safer learning environment which is conducive to learning. The teacher needs to understand their students and cater for their needs as per their capability.
The teaching of this era has changed a lot as compared in the past. The current teaching pedagogies are outcome based learning. The teaching should be such that it should reflect on the real life situations preparing students to face the current global issues whereby they are able to make conquering decisions. For an example, addition and subtraction which is learnt in the classroom should be practiced well by the child while doing shopping as a practical lesson. Learning has to be mastered in skills for life long knowledge.
During online course, I would prefer students to be using relevant educational videos, images, recorded classroom teachings and viber chat groups. These methods have been useful during this pandemic. As a teacher, I have been able to engage 90% of my students with the worksheet through these platforms. I was able to communicate on a daily basis through the chat groups and parents would communicate with the same. Small children enjoy learning when videos and images are used during teaching times, therefore, I prefer these methods.