PEDAGOGICAL CONTENTS – Observe It from the Masters

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe

– Marilyn vos Savant

In the first week of SEA-Teacher Program, besides we’ve got an orientation in Udon Thani Rajabhat University (UDRU) and Udonpittayanukoon School, we’ve got an opportunity to observe how teacher in school teaching their students. Keep reading guys!

For your information, we were placed in International Program of Udonpit. There are teachers who came from another country such as US, India, Philliphines (Foreign Teachers), and teachers who originated from Thailand (Local Teachers). Luckily, we can observe the teacher as soon in the first week (after orientation).

A. Teaching Methods
In teaching methods, most of teachers in here tend to use Student Centered Learning approachment to teach their students. It’s an effective ways to engage student activity. For learning activity in most of the class i observed, the teacher use this strategies :

a. Initiation/Pre-Task
Asking student attendance, gain student attention by question and tell the aims/ goals of the learning. There is different ways to get student attention in both teacher, for Thai Teacher they use thai languange, gesture, expression to motivate students to learn. In other hand, foreign teacher sometimes use a pictures, video or giving the example phenomenon and then ask question to engage students to learn.

In the other sides, because foreign teacher cannot use Thai Languange, i observe that they tend to give them question to answer, either individually or by the group. Foreign teacher are skillful to use different learning media, usually the high-tech one such as Interactive Whiteboard, etc. The Thai teacher are skillful to gain attention (i think because student can understand it so well), they use a conventional media such as Figure, Pictures, etc.

c. Closure
As usual, the closure for both teacher are just same. They give time to students to ask, encourage them to tell the conclusion, and tell topic in next meeting.

Some teachers prefer teaching directly without technology, and some other prefer using technology to teach their students.
For thai teacher who teach without technology, this is their methods :
a. Explain the contents of the topics
b. Ask students to create a group and give them a task.
c. Students discuss the task
d. Teacher ask students to come forward and present their findings.

For foreign teacher who teach with technology, this is their methods :
a. Showing students an experiment from Youtube
b. Give them a Questions about experiment which consist 5W + 1H
c. Ask them to tell their opinion about the experiment which consist 5W + 1H in front of the class.

They assess their students through quiz or discussion results, in the other day, they use a Test. Special for my mentor, he always create a test which has about 50 – 60 question. The midtest and final test were held in specific dates.

Actually the teachers have their own teaching methods, their styles are related with their Learning Sources and Technology.
Now, how about my teaching practice? You can see it in My Teaching Practice section. Let’s learn more to be a teacher guys!
Best Regards,