Course Content
1 | Introduction to Teaching
In this module, you will read a text and watch video about education and stages of the learning cycle. You will check your understanding with concept-checking questions. For the teaching competency standards that this module aligns to, please download the document from the Resources section.
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1.1 | What Is Education?
1.1.1 | Education: True or False?
1.2 | Understanding the Teaching Cycle
1.2.1 | Order the steps of the teaching cycle
1.2.2 | Video: The Teaching Cycle
00:00
1.2.3 | Ordering the Events
2 | Identifying Learners’ Needs
In this module, you will explore what learner needs are, how to identify learner needs, the difference between active and passive learning, and how to design classroom activities for different learners.
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2.1 | Active and Passive Learning
2.1.1 | Active? Passive? Both?
2.2 | Classroom Activities and Their Purpose
2.2.1 | Video: The Brain’s Learning Needs
00:00
2.2.2 | The Brain's Needs
2.2.3 | Practical Classroom Activities
2.3 | What Are Learners’ Needs?
2.3.1 | Matching Activities to Needs
2.3.2 | Matching Needs to Means of Data Collection
3 | School and Community Partnerships (to follow)
Introduction to follow.
4 | Lesson Planning and Learning Objectives
This module introduces the concept of lesson planning by providing a model (the five-stage lesson plan), exploring different types of activities, explaining learning objectives and allowing participants to practice writing their own lesson plan.
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4.1 | The Five-Stage Lesson Plan
4.1.1 | What Stage of the Lesson?
4.2 | Controlled to Free Practice
4.2.1 | Video: Controlled to Free Practice
00:00
4.2.2 | What Subject, and What Stage of the Lesson?
4.3 | Developing Clear Learning Objectives
4.3.1 | From Bad Objective to Good Objective
4.3.2 | Choose the Best Activities
4.4 | Lesson Planning: Putting It All Together
4.4.1 | Creating Controlled and Free Practice Activities
4.4.2 | Planning a Lesson
5 | Equity and Inclusion in Education (to follow)
This module introduces the concepts of equity and inclusion concepts in education.
6 | Classroom Management
This module invites the teacher to reflect on the good and bad behaviour of the students in their classes and how it can be prevented and managed. We will look at different strategies for how to facilitate positive student-teacher relationships to build better learning environments.
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6.1 | How to Create a Positive Learning Environment
6.1.1 | Video: Techniques for Good Relationships
00:00
6.1.2 | Techniques for Good Relationships
6.2 | What Are Rules and Routines?
6.2.1 | Rules and Routines...
6.2.2 | Rule or Routine?
6.3 | Managing Behaviour with Rewards and Punishments
6.3.1 | Reward or Punishment?
6.4 | Giving instructions
6.4.1 | What Strategy Do You See?
6.4.2 | Sequence the Instructions
7 | Diversity and Multicultural Education (to follow)
This module looks at the importance of diversity and multicultural education, and how to successfully manage it.
8 | Questioning Techniques and Cognitive Levels
This module overviews the use of questions in teaching and learning. It covers: elicitation, different question types and using Bloom's taxonomy to write questions.
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8.1 | Eliciting Skills
8.1.1 | Ways to Elicit
8.1.2 | Additional Ways to Elicit Information
8.2 | Types of Questions
8.2.1 | Open Question or Closed Question?
8.2.2 | Prompting, Probing, Divergent or Affective Question?
8.3 | Bloom’s Taxonomy for Questioning
8.3.1 | Video: Bloom’s Taxonomy and Thinking Levels
00:00
8.3.2 | What Level of Bloom's Taxonomy?
9 | Stress Management for Resilience (to follow)
This module is an introduction to the issue of stress and how to cope with it in education, to promote resilience in both teachers and their students.
10 | Innovation in Low-Resource Contexts
This module reviews learning objectives, presents ideas for DIY teaching aids and explores different ways the teacher can enhance learning in environments with limited resources.
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10.1 | Why Do We Need Resources?
10.1.1 | Match Activities to Resources
10.1.2 | Activities With Few or No Resources
10.2 | Making Your Own Materials
10.2.1 | Video: Five Ideas for Making Materials
10.2.2 | Thinking About Making Materials
11 | Motivation and Engagement
This module explores how teachers can define and enhance their student’s engagement and motivation. It will present a variety of strategies and techniques for how to group learners, how to differentiate for engagement and how to give feedback to improve motivation.
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11.1 | To Engage, to Motivate, or to Challenge?
Motivation, Engagement or Challenge?
Why Use This Technique?
11.2 | Engagement: Arranging the Class
11.2.1 | What Are the Best Groupings?
11.2.2 | Choose the Best Advice
11.2.3 | Design the Classroom Arrangement
11.3 | Engagement: Differentiation
11.3.1 | Video: Differentiation
Private: Foundations of Teaching

2.3 | What Are Learners’ Needs?

Preview

Before we begin, take a few minutes and think about this question: What information about your students would be useful to know before you begin teaching a course?

Five Areas That Are Useful to Know About Our Students

Five areas that are useful to know about our students are:

  1. Prior knowledge – What do your students already know about the topic that you are going to teach? What skills do they already have? Accessing students’ prior knowledge is necessary for the teacher, and also for the students, who will benefit from this as they learn.
  2. Physical needs – Do any of your students have a physical disability? Are there any physical barriers in your classroom that you need to fix?
  3. Motivation – Why are your students taking this course? What short-term and long-term goals do they have? What are they interested to learn about?
  4. Learning preferences – What learning preferences do your students have? What activities will most help them learn?
  5. Social needs – Which ethnicities, languages and cultures are present in your classroom? How could this affect student relationships?

Data Collection Methods

Teachers will need to collect data about students’ needs. Some standard ways of collecting data from students are:

P

Pre-tests

(given before a course or a topic)

S

Surveys

Structured questionnaires

I

Interviews/discussions

Direct conversations

O

Observation

Direct classroom monitoring

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