I recently started a Coursera course entitled Foundations of Teaching for Learning. I have to admit that I signed up because I was interested in unit 3, 6 and 8 of the course (I’ve only just started unit 2) and felt that I’d struggle with those units if I didn’t complete the other 5. I have finished unit 1 and was pleasantly surprised. While the course presents itself as a an introductory course to teaching (i.e. you have never taught before) I found that I still learnt a lot.
The key was “for learning”. This isn’t a course about teaching. It’s a course about learning and how to teach for learners.
Some of the “keys” I took away….
- Students learn through different contexts allowing them to be individuals and as a teacher I need to differentiate more to cater for this
- I need to incorporate more social, contextual learning
- Teachers need to use social, contextual learning for their own PD
- If you nurture teachers you nurture students
- Understanding the concept of nested contexts (school is a context within a students life context)
- Me, You, Space, Time learning
- To be a teacher is just as important as being a teacher
- Make thinking visible
- Asking students and yourself “what did I learn in school today?”
- Learning to read the room
- The purpose of assessment
I look forward to the Key learnings from unit 2 to 8….
