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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3 | School and Community Partnerships (to follow)
Introduction to follow.
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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7 | Diversity and Multicultural Education (to follow)
This module looks at the importance of diversity and multicultural education, and how to successfully manage it.
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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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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Private: Foundations of Teaching

8.1 | Eliciting Skills

Preview

Before we begin this section, consider the differences between the teaching in these two situations.

Situation A Situation B

Teacher: There are four main directions. They are north, south, east and west.

The teacher writes the four directions on the board.

Teacher: We use a compass to know which direction is north.

The teacher writes “compass” on the board.

The teacher draws a “+” and writes “north” on the board.

Teacher: There are four main directions. One is north. What are the others?

Student 1: South.

Student 2: West.

Student 3: East.

Student 1 writes the other three directions on the board.

Teacher: Does anyone know how we can know which direction is north? The teacher waits for ten seconds. Teacher: We can use a c…

Student 2: A compass!


Understanding Eliciting Skills

There are many ways to present new information to students that are engaging and interactive. You can see from the table above that the same new learning can be made more passive (Situation A) or more active (Situation B) depending on how much or how little the teacher uses eliciting.

Eliciting involves getting students to give information from their prior knowledge and generate ideas about what they are currently learning. The prior knowledge the teacher tries to elicit is usually called the “target item”. Teachers often elicit from students by prompting – giving clues in different ways until they name the target item. Sometimes when teachers elicit there may be many target items, such as when they ask students to brainstorm about a topic. If students remain silent for a long time or give incorrect answers, they may not have the necessary prior knowledge. If this happens, the teacher can review and clarify the prior knowledge.

You should praise and encourage learners when they give good suggestions and answers. The more you use eliciting, the more the students will expect it. Eliciting can be used throughout the lesson whenever you want the students to recall, share ideas that they have or connect the content to the world around them.