NATURE OF TEACHING

• To give instruction to
• To train
• To cause to understand
Teaching per se: is a phrase taken
directly from the Latin, meaning “by
itself,” and with the sense of “in and
of itself.”
• The universal processes through which education
and culture are transmitted across generation.
• GOAL OF TEACHING
-To enable the young to survive on their own as
they became adults and had families of their
own
• Teaching is a profession
• To graduate with
a teaching degree, you are
required to be relevantly and
formally qualified and to have
completed the
appropriate teacher training.
 Teaching to be effective:
• Must follow a well-organized process and
system of activities
• Facilitate and evaluate learning of students
• It should be based on established principles
and psychological theories
 Open ended questions
• What are your reasons for teaching? Which are
positive and which are negative?
• Is teaching a profession or a semi-profession? Is
it an art or a science?
• What degree of autonomy or input should
teachers have in making decision about the
curriculum?
• What professional knowledge or content is
most important in teaching?
• Should teachers focus on the whole child or an
academic skills?
• Can we define good teaching?
• Who should prepare, hire, and evaluate
teachers?
• What philosophy of teaching is best for
teaching students?
• What theories of learning are most conducive
to student’s learning?
• How do teachers maintain their mental
health?
• What teaching organizations should teachers
join? How can the working condition of
teachers be improve?
 The teaching act
• Teaching is a process because it necessarily
involves a lot of activities, ideas, and material
resources in order to achieve the best
product.
• What is implied here is that the teacher must
have a full view of what is going to transpire in
the whole teaching and learning activities.
 Teaching Behavior
• Establishment of a favorable classroom
atmosphere
Student-centered learning process
• Effective and efficient teaching must be
considered
 Effective classroom
practices.
• 1. Teacher Clarity
Clarifies the purpose and learning goals,
and provides explicit criteria on how students
can be successful. It's ideal to also present
models or examples to students so they can see
what the end product looks like.
Classroom Discussion
• Teachers need to frequently step offstage and
facilitate entire class discussion. This allows
students to learn from each other. It's also a
great opportunity for teachers to formatively
assess (through observation) how well
students are grasping new content and
concepts.
Feedback
• Students also need to be given opportunities
to provide feedback to the teacher so that she
can adjust the learning process, materials, and
instruction accordingly.
Formative Assessments
• Teachers need to assess frequently and
routinely where students are in relation to the
unit of study's learning goals or end product
Metacognitive Strategies
• refers to methods used to help students
understand the way they learn
• processes designed for students to 'think'
about their 'thinking'.
 Examples of Metacognitive Strategies
By Chris Drew, PhD

• Self-Questioning. Self-questioning involves

pausing throughout a task to consciously
check your own actions.
Without self-questioning we may lack humility
and awareness of our own faults
• Most importantly, we would not be able to improve
because we never took the time to ask ourselves
important questions like:
• Is this the best way to carry out this task?
• Did I miss something? Maybe I should check again.
• Did I follow the right procedure there?
• How could I do better next time?
• Am I looking at this task the right way?
• How can I do a better job at thinking about what
I’m doing?
• Meditation. Meditation involves clearing your
mind. We could consider it to be a meta
cognitive strategy because meditators aim to:
• Clear out the chatter that goes on in our
heads.
• Reach a calm and focused state that can prime
us for learning.
• Be more aware of our own inner speech.
• Reflection involves pausing to think about a
task. It us usually a cyclical process where we
reflect, think of ways to improve, try again
then go back to reflection.
• Reflection is metacognitive only if you
consciously reflect on what your thought
processes were and how to improve upon
them next time.
• Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses.
Central to metacognition is a person’s capacity
to see their own strengths and weaknesses.
Only through looking at yourself and making a
genuine assessment of your weaknesses can
you achieve self-improvement.
• One way to start looking at your strengths and
weaknesses is to use a SWOT chart.
 SWOT
• Strengths: write down what you perceive to be
your strengths as a learner.
• Weaknesses: write down what you perceive to
be your weaknesses as a learner.
• Opportunities: identify opportunities you may
have to improve your cognitive skills in the
coming weeks or months.
• Threats: identify potential threats that may
prevent you from improving your cognitive skills
in the coming weeks or months.
• Awareness of Learning Styles.
Learning styles theories such as Gardner’s
Multiple Intelligences and Learning Modalities
theories argue that different people learn in
different ways.
Some common learning styles include:
• Visual: A visual learner learns best through images,
graphics, TV documentaries and graphs. They are
good at identifying patterns and matching
complementary colours.
• Auditory: A visual learner learns best through
listening rather than watching or reading. They
enjoy being read stories and listening to podcasts.
• Kinesthetic: A kinesthetic learner learns best
through movement. They like to learn by doing
things rather than reading or listening. They are
active rather than passive learners.
• Logical-Mathematical: People who are logical-
mathematical learners are good at using reasoning to
find answers. They are good with numbers but may
struggle with subjective issues in the humanities.
• Interpersonal: An Interpersonal learner loves learning
through social interaction. They’re good at group work,
have high emotional intelligence, and can compromise to
get their job done.
• Intrapersonal: An intrapersonal learner is someone who
likes to mull things over in their own heads. They’re
happy to learn in silence and isolation and may find
working with others to be a distraction.
• If you are aware of how you learn (i.e. the way
your brain processes information!) you may be
able to use your strengths and work on your
weaknesses more efficiently.
• Mnemonic aids- are strategies you can use to improve your
information retention. They involve using rhymes, patterns
and associations to remember.
• ou might remember a name in one of the following ways:
• Rhyme: You meet a singer named Tom. You tell yourself
“Tom would sing a song before long.” Now, next time you
meet Tom the singer, you might be able to recall your rhyme
to remember both his name and profession!
• Association: I have a sister named Vanessa.
I always remember people named Vanessa because my
head says “Oh, she has the same name as my sister!” every
time I meet a Vanessa.
•
• Writing Down your Working-This teacher is
ensuring you are employing the right thinking
processes and can show others how you went
about thinking about the task.
• Thinking Aloud- The benefit of
sociocultural theory‘s strategy of thinking
aloud is that it makes you really think. You
have to talk through what your brain is doing,
making those thinking processes explicit.
• Teachers will often ask students to speak out
loud about what they’re thinking. It not only
helps the student be more conscious of their
cognitive processes, it also helps the teacher
identify areas where the student is going
astray.
• Graphic Organizers
• also sometimes called cognitive tools, help us
to consciously improve our thinking processes.
They assist us in:
Organizing our thoughts.
• Creating connections between things we
know.
• Thinking more deeply about something.
• Visualizing processes and procedures.
• The ideal graphic organizer will allow us to
spill our thinking out onto a sheet or screen
and shuffle and sort our thoughts to help us
organize our minds better. By using a graphic
organizer, we are more effectively thinking
about our thinking.
• The ideal graphic organizer will allow us to
spill our thinking out onto a sheet or screen
and shuffle and sort our thoughts to help us
organize our minds better. By using a graphic
organizer, we are more effectively thinking
about our thinking.
• Regulation Checklists
• A task based regulation checklist is usually
created before a task begins. It will:
• List the thought processes required to succeed in
the task.
• List the observable outcomes of higher order
thinking linked to the task.
• List the checkpoints during the task where
people should pause to reflect on their thinking.
• Active Reading Strategies:
are strategies that ensure you are concentrating while
you read and actually comprehend the information.
• Underlining text: Underline key or important bits of
information to highlight their importance in your mind.
• Using a ruler to read: place a ruler under the sentence
you’re reading to help you focus on that line.
• Scan for the main ideas: In informational texts, you can
scan for the information you need. Pay close attention
to subheadings that give you a clue about where you
will find the key information.
Some approach to active reading is the
reciprocal teaching approach. This
approach emphasizes four more
strategies:
• Questioning: Ask yourself questions or ask
your friends questions to check
comprehension.
• Summarizing: Try to sum up the page you just
read in one or two sentences to check for
comprehension before moving on.
Active Listening Strategies

• strategies students use to ensure they are

listening attentively.
• Turning your body to directly face the speaker.
• Making eye contact.
• Asking questions.
• Nodding when appropriate.
• Repeating what was said to you.
• Teachers can directly teach
and model active listening
strategies to help students
develop these metacognitive
skills and internalize them for
future use.
Planning Ahead

• we often have to think about how we’ll go

about a task. We might call it our “plan of
attack”.
• involves thinking about what we’re going to
do in order to complete a task.
• During your planning phase, you might make
decisions such as:
• Deciding what strategies you’ll use when your task,
competition or activity begins.
• Tossing up a range of different thinking skills you
might use when approaching a task.
• Reminding yourself not to make the same mistakes
you made last time.
• Preparing some tools that will help you keep your
thinking on track, such as preparing graphic
organizers.
 Final Thoughts

• When learners “think about their thinking”

they are more capable of self-improvement.
Metacognitive strategies can be learned,
practiced and made into habits in order to
improve learning, studying and thinking skills
into the future.