Evidencing Area of Activity 1 - Design and Plan Learning Activities and/or Programmes of Study

I adopted the teacher-centred teaching approach during the early period of my teaching career. My focus was on impressing my students with my technical skills, without effectively designing and planning the learning activities to achieve the learning outcomes. With my background in civil engineering, where detailed design and planning occur during the preconstruction phase of any project, one would have thought I should have at least applied this concept to my teaching. However, my later interactions with my mentor, colleagues, continuous professional development programmes, and feedback from students over the years have transformed my teaching approach to a more engaging, challenging, independent, and interactive student-centred approach.

A recent example of how I have adapted my teaching to the needs of the students relates to my experience in the HND civil engineering programme where I taught fluids and hydraulics to twelve mature students who all had full-time jobs. Feedback from interacting with the students revealed that they did not have sufficient time to independently revise the provided academic resources on Moodle, a virtual learning environment (VLE), before successive lessons. I made suitable changes by ensuring that the first 30 minutes of the 3-hour lesson were a revision of the last lesson in the form of group or self-assessment tasks. The verbal feedback from the students and results from the formative assessments, as evidenced by the interactive lecture tools (ILT): Poll Everywhere and Kahoot, revealed a significantly improved understanding of the unit (K4, K5, V2).

I currently teach civil engineering subjects to levels 4 – 6 higher education students using course specifications from our partner universities, the University of XXXX and the University of XXXX. I design the schemes of work from these specifications, identify and plan the lesson objectives by using the provided lesson plan format sheets, and assess the understanding of the students against the set objectives through formative and summative assessment methods such as presentation, examination, quiz, coursework, in-class self and group assessment task with adequate and actionable feedback, etc. (K2, K3).

Also, I applied Kolb’s four-stage cycle of experiential learning theory: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation, presented by McLeod (2017) in the level 5 fluids and hydraulics unit (K1, K3, V1, V3). The aim of the lesson was the application of Bernoulli’s equation in pipe flow. The objectives of the lesson were to ensure students could explain, evaluate, and apply this fundamental concept to various pipe flow problems. I introduced the underlying principles, and to deliberately provoke cognitive dissonance, I presented a pipe network with varying cross-sectional areas and challenged their preconceived notion that the higher flow velocity in the smaller pipe sectional area automatically means higher pressure (K1). Using mathematical and graphical references, I explained why this notion is inaccurate (K2). Also, I facilitated laboratory experiment sessions to explain these concepts and tasked the students to work in groups to ascertain their understanding and improve their collaboration skills. With these learning activities, I was able to engage the different learning styles; convergers and accommodators with strong practical orientations and intuitive problem-solving capability, and divergers and assimilators with a strong imaginative ability and ability to understand and create theoretical models/abstract ideas (Cassidy, S, 2004: Hawk and Shah, 2007) (V1, V2).

As outlined above, I have learned the importance of knowing the students before designing and planning learning activities. Information about their academic and work experiences is crucial in developing effective teaching and learning strategies (V4). I have learned that the use of constructivism learning theory (Bada, 2015), provoking cognitive dissonance and learners guiding their learning with minimal teacher support, is effective in stimulating development (V3).

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Reference

Bada, S. O. (2015) ‘Constructivism learning theory: a paradigm for teaching and learning’, IOSR Journal of Research & Method in Education, 6(1), pp. 66-70.

Cassidy, S. (2004) ‘Learning styles: an overview of theories, models, and measures’, Journal of Experimentation Educational Psychology, 24(4), pp. 419-444,

Hawk and Shah, (2007) Using learning style instruments to enhance student learning. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 5 (1).

Higher Education Academy (2011) The UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education. Available at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/system/files/downloads/uk_professional_standards_framework.pdf (Accessed: 26 December 2019)

McLeod, S. (2017) Kolb's learning styles and experiential learning cycle. Available at:https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html (Accessed: 26 December 2019).