Propuestas de Parque Agrario en la Vega de Granada [2001]

A teaching strategy is a “plan for someone else’s learning” and it includes the presentations which the teacher intends to make, the exercises the teacher has designed for students, the materials which will be supplied or recommended for students to use, and the ways in which the learning outcomes will be evaluated (Toohey 1999:

83 152). A teaching strategy is, therefore, a broad concept that encompasses all activities and resources that a teacher prepares for the student to be able to learn. Teaching strategies may range from teacher-focused to student-focused ones (Martin, Prosser, Trigwell, Ramsden, &Benjamin 2002: 109). Usually, the student-focused ones are the most helpful, especially when they specify the skills and capacities that need to be developed.

Teaching strategies that are student-focused enable students to learn the intended material and acquire the necessary education capabilities. Toohey (1999: 152-157), for example, explains ‘a simple model of the learning process’ which postulates that a learner goes through five stages in order to internalise an issue, be it a concept, principle or skill. The stages are: i) encounter or be introduced to the idea, concept, principle or skill; ii) get to know more about it; iii) try it out for oneself; iv) get feedback; v) reflect, adjust and try again. In the process of trying again only the later four stages need to be repeated as many times as necessary to deliver full mastery of the knowledge or skill.Toohey argues that the traditional methods used in university teaching have the potential for supporting all the five stage of learning. For example, in lectures or through readings when students are introduced to new material, information and different views, these cater for stage one. Then, laboratory work, tutorials, small-group work and assignments give students an opportunity to try out the new knowledge, get feedback, reflect and try again and in the process, stages two to five are covered. These different stages have to be reasonably balanced for effective learning to take place. For instance, in a situation where laboratory work or tutorials or small-group work are not used in teaching, the efficacy of knowledge and skill acquisition is compromised. Therefore, it is important that the methods used in teaching are carefully chosen in order to impart the required knowledge and skills tostudents.

Teaching methods impact on the development of student education capabilities differently. There are many teaching methods and techniques available to a university teacher /lecturer. They include: lecture, demonstration, case-study analysis, fieldwork, practical exercises, discussion, and simulation exercises. The emphasis has been

84 shifting over time from one method to another in a bid to identify the most effective approachto university teaching. In this study, we elaborate on five of the apparently most commonly used, but not necessarily the best, teaching methods.

The lecture method is a comparatively uninterrupted talk or presentation by a teacher on an academic subject, usually in a classroom setting (Thielens 1987: 1). The purpose of a lecture is to introduce new subjects, convey facts and statistics (Stone 1997: 7-7). Lecturing may be strict lecturing, implying teacher exposition with almost no student participation, or it could be less strict, where students are allowed to ask questions seeking clarification and also where some form of discussion is allowed (Hativa 2000: 71). Lecturing tends to move with other complementary sources such as textbooks, handouts, assignments and tests.

The discussion method is a teaching approach that encourages students to actively contribute ideas in the learning processes by talking to the teacher and to one another as the session progresses (Armstrong 2003: 900). The discussion method can be teacher- centred or student-centred. Student-centred discussions take the form of discussion groups of students handling similar or different issues. A teacher-centred discussion is one in which the teacher raises a question or a topic and guides students’ answers (Thielens 1987). The teacher-centred discussion is the most commonly used in university lecture rooms (Stone 1997: 7-5)but is not necessarily the best approach. Through discussions students pool several ideas and are able to advance their thinking.

The group-work method refers to a form of cooperative learning where small groups of four to seven learners examine a problem and develop a solution (Stone 1997: 7-6; Armstrong 2003: 902). Groupwork can also be a teaching approach where two or more students are enabled to work together to accomplish a common goal under three main conditions: “positive interdependence” where all students in a group must cooperate to complete a task; “group accountability” where all group members are accountable for the final outcome of their group work; and “personal responsibility” where students execute responsibility for their peers (Hativa 2000:117). Hence group-work members engage in

85 cooperative activities that benefit both the specific individuals and the entire group. Group learning enables students to present their ideas, develop problem-solving skills, learn from one another and develop team spirit, and helps clarify personal values (Stone 1997: 7-6 and Armstrong 2003: 902). In effect, group learning also gives students a sense of responsibility in the learning processes. Hence, group work is widely considered a useful approach to teaching.

The role-playing and simulation method is a teaching approach that requires students to act in a particular situation by combining case study and role-playing (Armstrong 2003: 902). In role-playing, a student who is in a learning process models some real-life problem-situation and tries to solve the problem so as to learn (Stone 1997: 7-4). Learners are given the opportunity to practise behaviour in conditions that are very similar to those they will meet in the workplace. The teacher composes a real-life situation and a cast of characters. The students adopt the different characters, find out the required information on the characters, and then act out a scene.

The case-method teaching involves using stories (cases), real or imagined, that place the students in the role of the decision-maker or problem-solver, thereby teaching skills and attitude change (Stone 1998: 7-3; Armstrong 2003: 901). Students are provided with background data and are required to make sense of the information provided to them, discover the principles which the case illustrates, and formulate appropriate responses regarding the next practical action to take. Consequently, the cases involve the consideration of many possible alternative approaches for action or solution that call for the evaluation of each approach. Case-based teaching helps students apply theory to practice and evaluate the applicability of those different theories to real-life situations. Students also learn that there are many different solutions to one problem.

The different teaching methods discussed above are very useful but require professional, committed and well-organised lecturers who know how to handle study-group dynamics. In fact, the multiplicity of teaching methods or approaches, where teaching is aimed at imparting knowledge, skills and attitudes that are applicable to the real world, can be a

86 challenge for many university lecturers seeking the best teaching method or combination of methods to use. This challenge is possible because what a given teaching method aims to give to students may not be what the students are actually internalising. As Watson and Ashton (1995: 91) explain, “it is not usually just 1) what is said, but 2) how, and 3) with what authority on the part of teachers, and 4) how often, and 5) what is missed out, and 6) in what context, and 7) with what personal attentiveness on the part of recipients” that determines what the students will actually learn. Watson and Ashton’s views provide thatinsight that a teacher needs to take stock of the totality of the teaching content and context. We may also add toWatson and Ashton’s list of issues the importance of considering the specific teaching intentions (education capabilities) as one of the determinants of effective learning.

Martin et al. (2002: 109-111) summarise the categories of approaches to teaching as follows: Firstly, the teacher may intend to transmit information to the students and this may be achieved through presenting the material to be studied, or covering the material, or clarifying the material to be learned. Secondly, the teacher may intend to enhance students’ “conceptual development” and this could be achieved either through engaging students with “discipline knowledge” or in “practising discipline knowledge”. And, thirdly, the teacher may focus on students’ “conceptual change” through engaging them in “challenging their discipline understanding/professional practice”. From this categorisation of approaches, it can be noted that the first category of teachers’ approach to teaching mainly focuses on “knowledge given” whereas the second and third categoriesfocus on “knowledge constructed”. Hence, these two conceptual distinctions in the teaching approach may guide how a lecturer will teach, and the subsequent education capabilities the teacher will build in the students.

Furthermore, it is argued that approaches to teaching, just like approaches to learning, contain two distinct dimensions, namely “intention and strategy” (Trigwell and Prosser 1991:264). Intention refers to the outcomes of teaching that the teacher aims at, while strategy means the plan through which the teaching outcomes are to be achieved. In the

87 opinion of Trigwell, Prosser and Taylor (1994: 78), there are five different approaches to teaching in higher education that reveal intention and strategy, namely:

Approach A: A teacher-focused strategy with the intention of transmitting information to students.

Approach B: A teacher-focused strategy with the intention that students acquire the concepts of the discipline.

Approach C:A teacher/student interaction strategy with the intention that students acquire the concepts of the discipline.

Approach D: A student-focused strategy aimed at students developing their conception.

Approach E: A student-focused strategy aimed at students changing their conceptions.

These approaches, in one way or another, form a hierarchy of usefulness to the student, with approach ‘A’ just giving facts, and perhaps skills, but almost not involving students in the teaching-learning processes. The teacher more or less assumes that the students have no clue aboutthe subject and the teacher, therefore, gives all the information. To the contrary, approach ‘E’ focuses on the student with the aim ofcreatinga conceptual understanding in the student. More emphasis is put on what the student is doing as opposed to what the teacher is doing. In the capability approach framework guiding the current study, approach ‘E’ would imply that the education capabilities the student is developing are considered prime and, therefore, deliberately developed.

University education is not only affected by the teaching approaches used but also by the wide environmental context in which teaching takes place. Effective teaching requires that a teacher has a good understanding of the teaching environment and a wide knowledge base that consists of not only mastery of alternative teaching methods but several teaching domains. According to Shulman (1986), the critical domains for teaching are: i) subject-matter knowledge; ii) pedagogical content knowledge; iii) general pedagogical knowledge; iv) knowledge of learners and learning; v) curricular knowledge; vi) knowledge of educational ends; vii) knowledge of context; and viii) knowledge of self. The mastery of these domains makes a teacher an effective one, but the extent to which these are realised in public university education are questionable, and requires investigation, for example, in public universities in Uganda.

88 Hativa (2000:16) believes that many university teachers do not possessgoodknowledge and skills ofteaching because they did not receive sufficient preparation in teaching methods in their career progression. Moreover, as Stark (quoted in Hativa 2000:17) observes, these “deficiencies in pedagogical knowledge negatively affect all aspects of university teaching” and this may happen as teachers plan their lessons with their mind tuned to the content and how to present it while giving little consideration tohow their students will understand it and utilise it. In fact, if students are poorly taught they learn less than if they are taughtwell. Hence, teaching effectiveness gets affected by the teacher’s level of pedagogical knowledge, teaching behaviours and teaching styles.

Teachers’ conception of the teaching and learning processes affects how they teach (Trigwell, Prosser and Waterhouse 1999: 60, 67). Similarly, teachers’ perception of the teaching environment influences how they will teach and this, in turn, affects student learning outcomes. For instance, when teachers believe that students are ignorant about the subject matter in question then the teachers may decide to concentrate on transmitting facts that simply enable students to write down good notes. This approach may, in turn, lead the students to adopt a surface approach to learning which is actually less helpful in imparting lifelong knowledge and skills. Kember (1997 quoted in Paakkari Tynjala &Kannas 2010: 906) synthesises teaching conceptions into five categories, namely “imparting information, transmitting structured knowledge, student-teacher interaction/apprenticeship, facilitating understanding, and conceptual change/intellectual development”. According to Paakkari et al. (2010:906), these five categories can be classified into two orientations, with the first three representing “teacher-centred/content- oriented conceptions of teaching and the last two categories representing student- centred/learning-oriented conceptions”. In the current study, the researcher argues that what changes the lives of students in terms of education capabilities expansion is the student-centred orientation. Therefore, in this study attention is paid to the teaching orientations of public university education in Uganda.

89 The different teaching orientations imply variations in teaching approaches. As Trigwell, Prosser and Taylor (quoted in Martin et al. 2002: 109) observe, the variations in the teaching approaches used across personalities depends on teachers’ intentions and strategies. Intentions may range from transferring information to students to enabling them tochange their conceptions and understanding of the subject matter. For example, knowledge and skills development would most likely be realised when the teachers’ intentions focus on changing students. In fact, Biggs (1996: 361) argues that good teachers should be clear about what they want students to learn and should indicate what students have to do in order to demonstrate that they have learned at the appropriate level. He further argues that teachers should know and utilise approaches that make their students learn effectively at the desired intellectual level and teacher should, therefore,be more student-centred in their pedagogical activities and more objective during the assessment processes. Hence, Biggs reaffirms the need for student- focused teaching approaches.

In general, teaching strategies and approaches that are effective in transforming students’ lives can be guided by six principles of good teaching , namely: a high level of teachers’ interest and explanation of their discipline; teachers’ concern and respect for students and student learning; teachers’ adoption of appropriate assessment and feedback; teaching that provides clear goals and intellectual challenge to the students; teaching that promotes independence, control and active engagement in the classroom; and teachers’ willingness to learn from students taking their course (Ramsden 2003 quoted in Exeter et al. 2010: 772). These principles are very important at university level if students are to develop the required knowledge, skills, attitudes and capacities. The current study utilises these principles to further explore the specific capabilities that university education needs to provide to undergraduate students (see also 9.4). In addition, the analysis in Chapter Seven takes care of the evaluation and quality assurance systems in university pedagogies.

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