by Mr Matthew Pon, School of Business and Accountancy
What are the factors that determine the value of a house? The typical answer is “Location! Location! Location!” How about the factors that influence the value of teaching? My response is an emphatic “Connection! Connection! Connection!”
Important connections in teaching and learning
Let’s consider some of the connections that influence learning the most.
1. Connections Between Students and Teachers
Surveys of students consistently show that having a bond with their lecturers is one of the most important aspects of their learning success.
A good teacher teaches the students. A better teacher connects with the students, with the hope of influencing behaviours and inspiring souls.
In my seven years of teaching in Ngee Ann Polytechnic, I have learnt that this profession involves both heart work and hard work.
We cannot fake sincerity. In our daily encounters with students, our words, our silence, our actions or our body language – each has the power to make or break a student’s day, a student’s desire to learn, a student’s potential or a student’s esteem.
To create a non-threatening learning environment, we need to establish good rapport and a strong relationship with students. We know that we have connected with our students when we receive phone calls, visits or wedding invitations after they graduate.
The author connecting during a previous students’ 21st birthday party
The author connecting with students at their graduation
Surveys of students consistently show that having a bond with their lecturers is one of the most important aspects of their learning success.
2. Connections Between Students
The social aspect of learning is very important for today’s students. I enhance the connections between students through the learning design that I employ in my classes.
Learner-centred presentation of tutorial – by a student
Groupwork in tutorials: The students are required to meet together in small groups to discuss the tutorial questions before class. Then, for the first 10 to 15 minutes of each tutorial, I give the students a chance to clarify their thoughts on the questions before discussing the topic as a whole group.
Engaged and connected students
I give the students a chance to clarify their thoughts on the questions before discussing the topic as a whole group.
e-Learning: During our e-learning weeks, the students experience the discussion forum (asynchronous) beginning from their first year of studies. The forum gives them time to think through the pre-assigned questions. Other students give their inputs and the tutor facilitates the discussion but does not tell them if they are right or not until end of week. In the Economics module, an example topic that has been discussed in this mode is monopolistic competition.
We begin to use synchronous discussion (chat) for students in years 2 and 3, since by then they are more familiar with our Learning Management System interface (we use Blackboard) and they are more confident to discuss the issues online.
Discover and share: Groups are formed and they are each assigned an economics topic that will be discussed in class sometime in the near future. The students need to discuss the topic and decide what evidence they will gather and how best to present that evidence. They then need to take photos or videos (or other media) of relevant objects that help to explain the concept. The objects may be signboards, news articles or perhaps they may interview people on the street, or they may gather coffee shop talk on some economic issue of the day.
News Item Pair Assignment: In pairs, the students need to select a news article on some economics issue and then they need to analyse it using the economic concepts they have learned. The assessment for this task will prepare them for an examination question involving case-based scenarios where they need to apply concepts.
3. Connections Between Students and the “Real World”
I have the privilege of teaching economics, a social science discipline that encompasses many connections and linkages to the real world. Apart from the “discover and share” and “news item pair assignment” examples given above, two other examples come to mind.
Real-world examples make it easier for students to understand concepts.
When discussing the oligopoly market structure, we teach the concept of “Game theory”, which helps to explain the decision-making process between different oligopolistic companies. To illustrate this concept, I took photos of petrol price display boards at several petrol stations. I used the apparent exact price of petrol charged by the petrol stations to illustrate obvious yet subtle business practices and firms’ behaviour. The frequent nodding of heads (to signal familiarity) and the many sparkles in the students’ eyes illustrated how real-world examples make it easier for students to understand concepts.
Second, in teaching the law of diminishing marginal returns concept as part of production theory to our first-year students, I got my students to conduct a role-play in class. Their job was to explain the concept to our canteen operators. It went something like the following script.
Role-play: Enabling students to understand the meaning of Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns (LDMR)
| Instructor: | What is the LDMR? |
| Student A: | LDMR means that as the firm adds more and more variable input(s) to the fixed input, the marginal product (output) of the additional variable input would ultimately decline. [Technical definition.] |
| Instructor: | Ok, that’s good. Can we try to explain the LDMR using the simplest language to a layman (without economics training), say to our canteen operator who is selling “rice with different dishes”? |
| Student B: | But sir, do they understand English? [laughs] |
| Instructor: | I’m sure they do if you use the simplest of words. If not, you guys can try using your Mandarin, Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, etc. [laughs] |
| Instructor: | I’ll play the role of the Uncle or Auntie in the canteen. |
| Student C: | Ok, I’ll try in English. Auntie, as you add more and more workers (variable inputs) to your stall, eventually the marginal product would decline. |
| Instructor: | I don’t think Auntie would understand words like ‘marginal’ or ‘product’. What is a simpler word for ‘marginal’? |
| Student C: | Additional! |
| Instructor: | That’s good! What about ‘total product’? |
| Student C: | Total output! |
| Instructor: | Ok, what is Auntie selling? |
| Student D: | Rice. |
| Instructor: | How is the output measured? |
| Student D: | By plates? |
| Instructor: | Yes, of course! Therefore, the total product is … |
| Student D: | Total number of plates of rice sold each day! |
| Instructor: | Ok, we’re getting there. What about marginal product then? |
| Student D: | The additional number of plates of rice contributed by the additional worker? |
| Instructor: | Correct. Now, let’s try and explain LDMR to Auntie then. |
| Student E: | Auntie, you should employ some helpers and then you can make and sell more plates. |
| Instructor (playing Auntie): | In the first place, why should I hire any helper? I can do all the work by myself. Furthermore, I have to pay them wages, might as well pay myself!?[Instructor wants students to explain about increasing marginal returns before DMR.] |
| Student A: | But if you could hire a few helpers, say four of them, divide them up for different work (division of labour), one in charge of cooking, one in charge of scooping the rice, one in charge of putting the chosen dishes on the plate of rice, and one as the cashier (specialization), instead of one person doing all the tasks, work productivity could be increased and you would end up selling more plates of rice!! |
| Instructor (playing Auntie): | Wow!! What a brilliant idea! I will heed you advice and go even further. Instead of just one, I might get 2 cooks, 2 servers and 2 cashiers! |
| Student A: | But that’s too many! |
| Instructor (playing Auntie): | But I thought you said I should hire helpers to increase my business. Didn’t you say more hands means higher productivity? Are you kidding me about your concepts of division of labour and specialisation? |
| Student B: | Auntie, as you add more and more helpers to your stall, it will reach a point where each new added helper will not actually produce more plates than the previous added helper − actually the opposite starts to occur. This is not because they work slower, but due to congestion and overcrowding of the fixed input. |
| Instructor (playing Auntie): | What does ‘overcrowding and congestion of the fixed input’ mean? |
| Student B: | Overcrowding and congestion starts because for instance, you cannot change the size of your stall overnight, neither can you change the size of your display (of dishes) or the size of your kitchen in a short period to time. Thus there is a limit to the benefits of division of labour and specialisation, after which, the LDMR would start due to overcrowding and congestion of the fixed input(s).[Instructor grins and nods his head satisfied that the students are beginning to understand the concept...] |
They learnt to use simple language to break down a seemingly difficult technical concept.
In the process of experiencing this role play, the students had much fun (and laughter), they learnt to use simple language to break down a seemingly difficult technical concept and most importantly, appreciated the relevance and realism of the concept. In connecting students to reality, I learnt that establishing relevance is the key in creating incentives to learn. Good and relevant real-world examples could both excite and incite learning.
Enhancing Connections Using Technology
Our students are digital natives. They have been surrounded by computers, mobile phones and the World Wide Web all their lives. As such, most of what we call “technology” is not technology to our students − it is just a tool they use to get a job done.
Most educators have a hard time playing technology catch-up.
Most educators have a hard time playing technology catch-up as we were brought up in a different environment. However, with a little boldness and endeavour, I have learnt that we can close the digital gap between the students and ourselves. We can complement the use of the physical classroom with the virtual classroom. The content remains the same while the variety of communication media has increased.
I have found that the use of chats, discussion forums, SMS, web-pages, YouTube and Wikipedia have helped to bring me closer to the learners.
For example, I use a short video clip from YouTube showing an “English Premier League match highlights” to introduce and excite students on the topic of monopoly. (Starhub won exclusive rights for the television broadcast of the Premier League.)
In the topic of Keynesian economics, we get our students to use online resources to find out more about the causes of the Great Depression and the role of government in the aftermath.
If we as instructors stay in touch with technology, it can help us to stay more closely connected with our learners. Harnessing the relevant technologies helps to establish more common ground between instructors and learners as it creates alternative learning platforms.
Conclusion
To summarise, I believe that:
- Teaching is more about making connections than giving information;
- The connections that we need to foster are those between students and tutors, amongst students themselves, and between students and the ‘real-world’;
- We should use technology to enhance these connections, and not use technology for its own sake;
- Since the students say that relationships are very important when it comes to teaching and learning, we should take the connections issue seriously!
“Learning is a process of connecting. [The] ability to perceive and nurture connections between ideas and concepts is a crucial skill.” − George Siemens
Author
Matthew Pon, School of Business and Accountancy
RSS 2.0