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
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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

8.2 | Open and Closed Questions

Preview

Before we begin, read these answers to questions and think about what questions they might answer. What kinds of questions are they?

  • Yes, every day.
  • Because it’s not fair to women or girls.
  • You multiply the number by itself. For example, 5 multiplied by 5.
  • It makes me angry, and I want to change it.
  • I would probably speak to their manager first, and then make a decision.
  • 1885.

Open and Closed Questions

Questions can be either open or closed.

  • Open questions have many possible answers. Open questions elicit a meaningful answer from students based on their feelings, thoughts, beliefs, experience and knowledge.
  • Closed questions have one correct answer or a limited set of possible answers. They often receive shorter, factual responses.

Common Types of Open Questions

There are many types of open questions that can be used during a lesson. Four common types are:

  • Prompting questions get students thinking about the topic of the lesson or upcoming activity. They are good to ask at the beginning of a lesson or activity to generate some initial ideas.
  • Probing questions expand on and go deeper into ideas that students have already shared. They require students to go beyond their first response, such as by giving reasons or evidence, and therefore would be asked in response to an answer that has already been given.
  • Divergent questions encourage the exploration of possibilities. These questions ask students to consider different possibilities, such as through cause and effect, and do not necessarily have correct and incorrect answers.
  • Affective questions elicit attitudes, values and feelings. These questions help personalise the learning experience by encouraging students to connect what they are learning to themselves.

Here are some examples of the different types of questions.

  • Open Question: Why did the main character act that way?
  • Closed Question: What is the longest river in the world?
  • Prompting Question: How do you feel about the issue of climate change?
  • Probing Question: What do you mean by that?
  • Divergent Question: How would this be different 10 years ago?
  • Affective Question: Is this important to you?
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