Excellent teaching and learning

– students background and

study behaviour

Teacher Training
course 27.10.09
Lone Krogh
 Group diskussions
 Which are (in our opinion) the most
important competences (learning
ourtcome) students have to achieve during
university studies (professionally,
technically, generally and personally)?

 Please, write statements on flipover paper

 What do we have to learn
students?
 ”The kind of learning we are interested in is
learning which implies that the learners develop
capabilities for seeing or experiencing situations
or phenomena in certain ways………..Students
must be prepared for the unknown variation
among situations in the future through
experiencing variation in their education, which
will enable them to discern critical aspects of
novel situations” (Bowden og Marton, 1998, s. 24).
 Aims/Objectives (ref. Bologna
declaration)
1) Employability 2) Mobility 3) Lifelong Leaning, devided into

 Intellectual competencies, (analysis and abstract thinking,

knowledge searching attitude, communicative skills and the ability to
structure personal learning. (Competencies not attached to individual
subjects or programmes)).
 Professional competencies, (special competencies within a specific
subject, knowledge of limited subject, inter-disciplinary competencies,
- competencies related to individual subjects or programmes).
 Practical competencies, (practical skills, professional ethics and
responsibility. These competencies are explicitly focused on
managing operational functions).

(Bologna Expert Monitoring group, 2003)

 A new Qualification framework

 The new QF is being implemented in

Danish accreditation legislation
 Goals are here defined as the learning
outcome, which you may expect new
candidates to have achieved.
 Learning outcome

” Learning outcome is statements of what a learner is expected to

know, understand and/or able to do at the end of a period of
learning” (Bologna Conference in Edinburgh 1-2 July, 2004)

Learning outcome statements are typically characterized by use of

active verbs, which express knowledge, understanding, application,
analyses, synthesis and evaluation
The learning outcome in the new QF has to
be divided into 3 overall categories:
Key words:
 Knowledge: Knowledge, understanding and
reflection
 Skills: Different type of skills related to
workplace occupation,
evaluation of theoretical and practical
problems and decision,
Communication of subject relevant problems
and solutions
 Competences: Action, collaboration,
responsibility, learning

 Still within the framework: Employability 2) Mobility 3) Lifelong

Leaning,
 A qualification framework
 Is a systematic description of qualification levels and types within a
given education system, mainly based on a description of learning
outcomes. It increases the transparency and comparability of
qualifications and may thereby

 facilitate credit transfer and mobility on a national and international

scale
 facilitate recognition of foreign qualifications
 make the degree structures more transparent
 improve the basis for educational planning and evaluation.

Information about the hew Qualification framework can be found here: http://
www.udiverden.dk/Default.aspx?ID=3792
 Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956/Anderson & Krathwohl, 2000)
Competence Skills Demonstrated
1. Remember Rote learning. Recalling and recognizing
knowledge from memory, when used to produce
definnitions, facts or recite or retrieve material
2. Understanding Constructing meaning from different types of
functions (written or graphic) messages activities
like interpreting, exemplifying, classifying,
summarizing, comparing, explaining
3. Applying Carrying out or using a procedure through
executing or implementing
4. Analyzing Mental actions incl.the function of differentiating,
organizing, attributing and being able to
distinguish between components
5. Evaluating Making judgements based on criteria and
standards thorugh checking and critiquing
6. Creating Reorganizing elements into a new pattern or
structure through generating, planning or
producing. (synthesize parts into someeting new)
 SOLO-taxonomy (Strucured Observed
Learning Outcome) (Biggs, 2003)
Deep Extended abstract:
Learning Apply, transfer, relate, question and go beyond
existing principles, reflect scientifically, theorise, gene-
ralise, set up hypothesis, critizise known theory a.s.o.
Relationel:
Analysing, integration of data. Understanding how to apply
the concept to a familiar data set or to a problem
Multistructural:
Disorganized collection of items (shopping-list),
’Knowledge-telling’
Unistructural
Unistructural:
Simple naming, identifying, rote-learning, referring,
summarizing a.s.o.
Surface
learning Prestrucural:
Misses points
 Dimensions of students
learning/competence development
Level of knowledge and abilities Learning goals (examples):
When the course/seminar/project
(Bloom or SOLO)
a.s.o. is ended it is expected that
Learning the student
• is acquanted with//has
goals/Com-
petence goals knowledge about – and masters
…….,can
• understand, explain and make
use of basic methods and
X results….
• identify and precisely
understand.
Content • argue deeply
• analyse and evaluate
• demonstrate the ability to use
• Formulate…..
Insp. Rump, 2007
• Carry out
•A.s.o.
 Group discussion
 Try to characterize your students – what
do you know about them, how is their
study behaviour?

 Please, write statements on Flipover paper

Students
 Who are the students?
Studens have very diverse background and motivations

 Very much motivated (20 %)

 Moderate motivated (30-40%)
 The ”minimalists” (40-50%)

 Challenges: Among the minimalists we find an unknown group of

”late bloomers”

(Lauvås, 2004)
 Different learning strategies
Deep approach to learning Surface approach to learning

 Focus on demands
 Focus on understanding  Try to remember
 Demonstration of the  Acquiring pieces of unconnected
relationship between information
connections and the whole  No organization – no overall
 Connections beyond the sense
 Simple and obvious connections
immediate subject area  The significance of connections
 Generalisation and transfer of is not demonstrated (a number
the principles from the of connections)
specific to the abstract  The significance of the
relationship between
(Biggs, 2007)
connections is not demonstrated
 Susan
 Is academically committed, bright, interested in her studies
and wants to do well
 Has clear academic career plans
 What she learns is important to her. (She goes about learing
in a more traditional academic way)
 Comes to the lectures with sound, relevant background
knovledge and possible some questions, she wants answered
– or it may not be the answer she is looking for, and she
speculates, wondering why it isn’t

Students like Susan virtually teach themselves, with little

help from teachers
 Robert
 Is at university in order to obtain a qualification for a decent job
 He is not studying in the area of his first choice
 He is less committed than Susan
 He comes to the lecure with few questions
 He wants to put in just sufficient effort to pass
 Robert hears the lecturer saying the same words as Susan, but he
does not se a keystone, - just another brick to be recorded in his
lecture notes
 He belives that if he can record enough of these bricks, and
remember them on cue, he will keep out of trouble on examn.

We are told that there ar many Roberts!

 Johnny
 Study oriented
 Strategic
 Goal-oriented (the most necessary things)
 Focussed on exams
 Strategic-minimalistic

(Pettersen, 2005)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dGCJ46vyR9o
 YouTube video: A vision for students today : a short video
summarizing some of the most important characteristics of
students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their
goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, a.s.o.

 Michael Wesch is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at

Kansas State University, among other things head of the
project Digital Ethnography with intensions:
“to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital
ethnography.”
See some of the groups YouTube videos for instance. “Web
2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us“, der […]
 How can we plan and conduct
’excellent and effective’ teaching? –
possibilites and challenges

To be continued……..
 Group discussion
 Now please, suggest some examples on/or principles for excellent
and relevant teaching and lesson plans, which take into
consideration and meet some of the ’formal demands’ for students
learning outcome within different areas and at the same time meet
students diversity. – what do you have to consider in the planning
and which would be the best methods and enviroments to support
students in their learning processes?

 Please, write suggestions on the flipover-paper

 Some kind of evidence for good
teaching and learning enviroments
 Well defined and clear structure for teaching
 Enough time for learning
 Learning supported working climate
 Clearness and transparency in terms of content
 Meaningful communication
 Variety of teaching methods
 Individuality (students individual learning needs)
 Intelligent training
 Transparency in expectations to the students
 Stimulating learning environments
(Meyer, 2005 p. 17 f)
 Excellent teaching from the teachers’ and
students’ point of view . The teacher. (Ramsden, 1996 p.
86-87)

The teacher:
 Has a desire to share his/her love of the subject with the students,
 Has abilities to make the material being taught stimulating and interesting,
 Has facilities for engaging with students at their level of understanding,
 Has a capacity to explain absolutely clear what has to be understood, at
what level, and why,
 Shows concern and respect for students,
 Feels committed to encourage student independence,
 Has abilities to improvise and adapt to new demands,
 Uses teaching methods and academic tasks that require students to learn
thoughtfully, responsibly and cooperatively,
 Uses valid assessment methods,
 Focuses on key concepts, and students’ misunderstandings of them, rather
than on covering the ground,
 Give the highest-quality feedback on students work,
 Has a desire to learn from students and other sources about the effects on
teaching and how it can be improved.
 Study programmes are to develop study-activities
which support the students in their learning processes
towards the objectives and goals for the sudies

” A good teaching system alligns teaching methods

and assessment to the learning activities stated in
the objectives, so that all aspects of this system act
in accord to support appropriate learning ”

Biggs, 2007
 The didactics: Constrsuctive
alignment
(inspired by Biggs 2003)

Students’ background
and diversity Study- and learning
Motivation activities Learning outcome
Experiences Problem-oriented Higher order skills
project-work in groups and knowledge
(or individually) (analytical,
Problem-solving methodological,
Study context
Courses etc. transferable skills,
Regulations
Students’ freedom of and inter-
Required –
choices – students disciplinarity etc.)
competencies
perception of
Students’ freedom of
knowledge and skills
choice
Study enviroments
Exam regulations Process Product
Presage
Stratetic Johnny
 Research-based teaching?
Ideal:
 You work together with the students and discuss the basis of the
subjects – not just educational books and theories
 Basic activities, related to the subject and its methods are being
practicised – not only mentioned
 Students are invited to participate in the community of professional
researchers and teachers
 Students are being guided in working and writing academically
 Students are involved in authentic research projects
 The professional academic community (the university) is in contact
with academic practioners outside the university
 The teachers are researchers

(T. K. Jensen,
2006)
 Læringens 3 dimensioner
Content Motive
Brainwork power Feelings/emotions/
Knowledge, motivation
understanding
Skills,
qualifications

Inter-
Collaboration action
with other
students,
teachers and
surroundings
 The theory and practice of teaching and learning: Didaktik -
A frame for analysing, planning and teaching: Alignment
Context Context
Evaluation
assessment
National and
International
Politics (Bologna)
Stakeholder
Teacher/ Students/
inerests
supervisor Learners
Economy
Law
Organization
Traditions
Values
a.s.o.
Aalborg
PBL model

Topics Methods/ Research

(syllabus) supervision
(IT)
based
teaching
Subjects/ Aims/ Knowledge
disciplines objectives Skills
Competences

Aims/objectives
 Evaluation/assessment - 3 integrated
functions
1. The summative function: assessment of
students learning outcome
2. The formative function: feedback to students
about their strengths and weaknesses
(feedback)
3. Students evaluation of teaching and the
educational system. Goal: to improve practice
(also formative)

NB: Summative evaluation must have

formative functions
 Evaluation/assessment of students have a much greater
influence on how and what students learn than any other

single factor

3 critical points:

 The validity of exams are generally low (it often does not measure learning
outcome such as understanding and relevant competence development)
 Tests and exams have very strong controling effect on study activities (not
in a way that the students learn leading subject related concepts, principles
a.s.o – but rather learn to solve predictable assignments)
 Exams often keep students in a passive role

Ref. Lauvås and Jakobsen, 2002) and (Sadler, 2005),

(Boud,1988), (Gibbs,1999), (Cowan, 2003).
 “If we want to encourage them (the students) to
take a deep rather than a surface approach to
the development of ……..skills, we need to
design practical assignments intelligently. We
need to think not just about the assessment
criteria but also about weighting, timing, agency
and ‘fitness for purpose’, with imaginative
consideration of methods and approaches that
can challenge students, be inclusive and suit the
topic, context, cohort and level ” (Boud in Pickford and Brown,
2006)
 Some advices for assessment in
higher education
 Link assessment to learning (alignment)
 Never assess without giving comments to students about how they might
improve
 Learn from your students mistakes. Use assessment to discover their
misunderstandings, then modify teaching to address them
 Deploy a variety of assessment methods
 Try to get students participating in the assessment process, through;
a. Discussions of appropiate methods and how the methods relate to the
(course) goals
b. Joint staff-student design of assessment questions and negotiation of
criteria for success and failure
c. Self- and peer assessment activities
d. Offering students responsible choices among different methods
 Focus on validiy (what you are measuring important?) and then reliability
(is your test consistent?)
 Do everything in your power to lessen the anxiety raised by assessments
(Ramsden, 1996, s. 204-205)
Formative evaluation of teaching is a tool
for the teacher to be wiser about the
teaching and then afterwards improving it
But

never ask the students directly if they are

satisfied with the teaching without asking
them about their own work-rate?
 People learn
 10% of what they read
 20% of what they hear
 30% of what they see
 50% of what they see and hear
 70% of what they talk over with others
 80% of what they use and do in real life
 95% of what they teach someone else

William Glasser, quoted by Association for Supervision and Curriculum

Department, Guide 1988.
Different teaching and learning
situations