2.9: KEY PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION

The principles of education from Course 2

2.1: Authentic learning. In this principle of education, material content should be relevant and learning activities comparing well with real world tasks professionals do. Learners must be actively involved in realistic and social, investigative climate, using technologies that real professionals use to bring out a polished valuable product. For instance, a chemistry class handling physical states of matter could easily come out with a candles from molten wax as a product. Similarly, if they are looking at solutions and mixtures, they could easily product cough mixture as an authentic product.  

2.2: Multiple intelligences. Human beings are unique individuals with different intellectual strengths and interests. They look at things differently, learn in different ways, and represent and use knowledge in many different ways. It is important that teachers know and use the learners' mix of intelligence to avoid treating all learners the same way. In that way, they are able to create real but different learning situations and experiences, and use different approaches to address individual differences in order to benefit them. It is also important content material be relevant and enough time be allowed to learners to interact and reflect on it. Then and only then can they make sense of content in their own way.

2.3: Constructivist approach and creative thinking. Reality or knowledge is not meant to be served to learners ready-made. Learners are supposed to construct it. All children are born creative. They have creative ideas and a capacity to try them out. In this way, they are able to construct things and with good guidance from a teacher, they could construct knowledge. Therefore, students should be allowed the freedom to follow their passions, to do things their own way, to study at their own pace and in their own time, to reflect clearly on what they do and to be meaningfully guided by the teachers.

2.4: Progressive and experiential learning. This principle advocates for rapid social and academic reforms in schools and classrooms. It is intended to create free, independent and creative human beings by allowing learners to follow their natural instincts instead of developing obedient and subordinate citizens. Learners should be provided real world resources and be helped to use them to find information and construct knowledge. Teachers should plan activities that create experiences and engage learners in the learning process by recognizing that "people learn better by doing". Experiences make more lasting impressions in peoples' lives breeding confidence and broadening creative and critical thinking.

2.7: Equilibrium, disequilibrium, assimilation and accommodation. If we allow students to learn things that really matter to them, they easily assimilate them into their own schemas. Then they are more likely to ask questions and to construct meaning out of them and to integrate them into their mental frameworks. The teacher should be able to encourage disequilibrium in his class by providing concepts and experiences to learners using different approaches. The different approaches give students different pictures of the concept in question. Knowledge is dynamic. New ideas change what we know.

2.8: Disruptive learning. This entails substituting the teacher with technology as the main learning vehicle, so that learning becomes self-organized and self-directed in response to individual differences. This principle taps into learners' different intelligences, and providing technologies helps learners to learn at their own paces using their own styles. A good example of this type of learning is the flipped classroom. 

2.5: Socratic method and Critical thinking. Learners should be taught how to think critically, learn and live. That ought to be the role of school and teachers.  

Action plan - My teaching

I consider good teaching to involve the following: knowledge of students' mix of intelligences; creating an attractive, democratic and safe learning environment for the students; setting learning objectives appropriate with the knowledge and skills being developed in the students; selecting relevant content; designing activities or creating experiences through which the objectives can be achieved; selecting media and technological resources that align well with the learning activities and designing assessment activities aligned with and contributing to the achievement of learning objectives.

If someone were to visit my class in a year's time, S/he should be able to see:

• Aspects of constructivism infused in my lessons, with students' interests and questions pursued, involving interactive learning, building on what the student already knows, using active techniques such as experimentation, Socratic inquiry and problem solving, taking risks by allowing students and myself to go wrong in the interest of creativity, resulting in the stretching, exploration and invention of  knowledge.
• Evidence of flipped classroom instruction; with students accessing content through computers and software, students studying at their own pace and in their own time, after which they are invited to class for more in-depth collaborative learning and application of knowledge through planned hands-on activities.
• A shift in the mode of assessment from summative assessment (using tests and examinations) to formative or integrated assessment (which is continuous and diagnostic), in which learners get immediate feedback and improve their performance while teachers adjust their modes and styles of content presentation.

Action plan - My school

Learners should be taught how to think critically, how to learn and how to live. That ought to be the role of school and teachers. Therefore, if someone were to visit my College in a year's time, s/he should be able to see blended learning in form of flipped classrooms taking place. There should be evidence of directed learning with technology being used as the main learning vehicle. This should be possible with seven CCTI participants and other ATL (active teaching and learning) enabled members on the campus. We also have a sizeable IT laboratory for students' use. Administration and Ministry of Education could also be implored to increase internet coverage and signal strength in the college.