Preparing to teach on learning and teaching workshop
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I am glad that I decided to attend Learning and Teaching workshops for postgraduate researchers. The workshops can be booked in Central Short Courses. Professional development will issue Preparing to teach in Higher Education (HE) certificate if four workshops have been attended. One core workshop is Preparing to teach in HE, while the other three can be chosen from a recommended workshops list in Learning and Teaching category. I prefer Foundations of teaching in HE, Lecturing for learning, and Small group teaching, respectively. Other workshops available such as Demonstrating in Laboratory Practical, Marking and Assessment, and Presentation skills. First I received information about this workshop was in November 2016 and the current availability to booked is until 2018. Then I decided to attend the four workshops in 2017. Overall the workshops help those who are new or has a few experiences in teaching (less than three years). Every workshop run for three hours with a coffee break and the sessions are mostly held in King Meadow campus.
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I am going to put a highlight of the story on the core workshop (preparing to teach in HE) since this is the beginning where you realise some learning and teaching insights that you might not have considered before. To be specific, the first workshop directs me to identify my learning and teaching style. It can be seen from the first part of the workshop that we were challenged to think about our beliefs and assumptions in teaching. I start to feel whether the way I teach is the same as the way my teacher teach me before, or I teach based on the best learning method that is suitable for me. On the other hand, students most likely are different from us. Furthermore, there were activities as a pre-workshop that gave us score which reflect our teaching identity. The results made you think how profound the experience gives you influence. In my opinion, having this self-assessment could help to pinpoint parts which need improvement. After that, we discussed teaching excellence that we were asked about someone who we thought was a good teacher and why. Then we made a list of useful teaching characteristics.
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The second workshop (foundations of teaching in HE) explored how do students learn. We reviewed some learning model and related them to the teaching practice. We discussed what motivates us to learn, what is the learning outcome, what teaching method would be suitable for the outcome, and what assessment method might be appropriate. This mapping process reminded me when I wrote a learning plan. The third (lecturing for learning) and fourth (small group teaching) workshop were more specific than the other two. I learned that there are different aspects to focus on preparing and delivering a lecture versus a seminar/tutorial.
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Finally, in the workshops, you met other postgraduates or staffs who aspire to teach, so the discussion became interesting when you related to the same experience and even some people share tips to handle stressful situations in class. This experience may help you in the future.
