FLEX Reflection one
The activity was an interactive session with students on social class in Social Work. As a result of the feedback of the group that I received, as part of my microteaching session on the ILTA course, I wanted to find a way in order to develop a teaching session that was more visual and more interactive than a traditional lecture based format.
One of the aspects of the ILTA module that had resonated with me the most was when we considered the efficacy of formal lectures in the university as this is how I deliver much of much of my teaching. French and Kennedy (2016) suggest that lectures are ‘as effective, but no more so, than discussion based and other learning methods’(2016:no page no) Using reflection on action (2014:52) I concluded that my teaching should be more participatory for the students, in order to try and enhance their experience. To do this, I invited a local historian and activist to speak to the students on the 1984 miner’s strike, using this as the historical point where neoliberalism was embedded as the main political ideology in the UK.
The second part of the session was self-directed task where the students were to go to the Peoples History Museum to identify an area of social justice that inspired them and then return to Birley to discuss this as a group.
Analysis One of the ways in which I analysed the sessions effectiveness was to use the ‘one minute paper’ (2007) Feedback was largely positive. Students overwhelmingly felt that the lecture worked well This seemed contrary to Freire’s (1993) principles of eschewing the ‘expert teacher’ that is required by a lecture, however, “Research indicates invited guest speakers can build linkages between academia and the practitioner, ….. and greatly enhance student learning” (2005:1). I reflected on this and felt that the difference may have been because the lecturer was a guest who worked outside of mainstream education and who, as someone involved in trade union lead education and was used to lecturing to a group of students from a variety of different educational backgrounds.
One of the aims of the session of the session was to encourage the students to think critically about the subject of class and neoliberalism. Students had previously done a session on neoliberalism and some of the feedback that I had received was they didn’t properly understand the ideology. The question and answer session was positive. Students engaged, there was a good level of discussion and students seemed to be far more involved than I had expected. I had intended the session to be underpinned by constructivist principles: positing that ‘learning is not simply about adding new knowledge but is about making changes to existing knowledge in order to accommodate new ways of understanding’ (2015 65)
I also wanted students to apply critical thinking skills to the subject. Fry et al (2015) set out that critical thinking is establishing connections between different concepts and how these can be situations and issues in the world. What I was seeking, was to get students to use a historical moment to understand an ideology, which has had such an impact on society, which is where the students, as social workers, will work. As students had previously had teaching on and around this area (but had remained unenlightened) my hope, that this new way of considering neoliberalism, would make sense, appeared to have worked.
For Freire (1993)‘ no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are “owned” by the teacher.’ (1993:54) the interaction and engagement with each other and with the world (that is the guest lecturer and the museum and its collection) was fundamental to the student’s development of their understanding of the subject of Neoliberalism and social class. This was demonstrated by the response that this part of the session received. However, some of the feedback was that students felt that it would have been beneficial for everyone to be involved equally in this part of the session. , Some felt that certain individuals had dominated the discussion. Literature shows that this is a perennial issue in education Karp and Yoels (1976 in 2004) ‘found that regardless of class size the vast majority of contributions to classroom discussion will come from a very small number of students’(2004 2) .My students recommended having group tasks so they could reflect what they had learnt, more fully.
Action Plan Having gained students feedback from the session I have been able to plan for what I would do differently in a session such as this in the future. I feel that the session would benefit from having a more planned task and generally more structure overall Fry et al (2015) state that there is a need to provide structure to group work. I feel that this could co-exist with the social constructivist element of the exercise, which I felt was integral, but would allow for the group having different learning styles.
References Freire, P. (1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed New York Continuum International
Fook, J, (2014) Social Work: A Critical Approach to Practice 3rd Ed London, Sage
French, S and Kennedy, G (2017) Reassessing the value of university lectures, Teaching in Higher Education,22:6,p.639-654, accessed online 08/01/19 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562517.2016.1273213
Howard, Jay R. (2004)Discussion in the College Classroom: Jon Wiley San Francisco accessed online on 18/12/2018 https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=facsch_papers
Light, G and Cox, R (2001) Learning and Teaching in Higher Education The Reflective Professional London Sage
Sniezek, T. (2005). Avoiding the pitfalls of the invited speaker. in Kamoun F and Said S (2007) A Framework Towards Assessing the Merits of Inviting IT Professionals to the Classroom Journal of Information Technology Education Volume 6, 2007Accessed online 08/01/19 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3b6b/c4ed576cbae32793dc32754bca1189faa22e.pdf
Alex's account 