demands of the ever-changing teacher’s role. In modern education, as in evolution, the motto is ‘adapt to survive’
Taken from Geoffrey Petty (Teaching Today, A Teachers Guide page 123)
We could have kept the lesson as it was and fulfilled the requirements of the military teaching curriculum but after completing the first year of the Cert Ed with all the learning and personal growth that this course has developed within each of us we knew that this lesson had to be changed to fully develop the framework as well as structure and therefore improve the learning opportunities for the students.
Lesson structure, content and the reasons for the chosen structure and content
The content of the five lessons takes the student, first, through two classroom sessions where they will be shown the paperwork involved in making sure the aircraft is in a ‘safe’ state to work on. Then they will then
be shown the safety devices that they must check before entering the cockpit and carrying out any work on the aircraft. This part of the lesson structure follows the concepts of Hilda Taba (1902-1967) and are strictly rooted in the Product or Conceptual area of curriculum development. This model follows the Aims and Objectives curriculum; students are given selective and ordered learning experiences. In the original lesson format the students were shown something without recourse to tactile assessment of the object in question but were expected to learn how to think, how to process information from many points of view, and how to solve problems given that information. Given the original style of delivery this was an extremely hard task.
states that
Curriculum
Adults tend to be problem-centered in their orientation. Problem solving is one of the most beneficial educational opportunities for adults. Thus, curriculum for adults should be organized around problems rather than
subjects and these problems should reflect the concerns that adults have experienced.
They will then move to the hangar and have tangible contact with paperwork and aircraft in order to build on the classroom lectures. This segment will last for two lessons. During this time the students will be shown by an instructor, the actual paperwork and switch positions, first, as a group of six and then as a smaller group of three,
maintains that;
Groupwork
One of the benefits of group work is increased social integration. Social integration has been show to have a significant positive effect on retention. Small groups of peers at the same level of career maturity create a social environment that motivates adult learners to persist. The importance of drawing on the experiences, skills, and values of the learners themselves is an internationally supported tenet of adult education. Groups allow students to draw on these experiences.
They will then carry out the checks themselves whilst under supervision from the same instructor. The two lessons are rooted in the Process or Dynamic interaction curriculum model which is the opposite end of the scale from Product. This model of curriculum was advocated by Skillbeck and Walker and pioneered the more ‘hands on’ approach to learning, without strict guidelines, losing the strict Objectives framework but still keeping the Aims. The students will then return to the classroom for the final session which will take the form of a Summative test on all the days’ events. The overall layout for this group of lessons was chosen because it gave the best format for learning opportunities for the students. Although in essence we have used all three models of curriculum design in assembling this lesson plan, Process, Product and Spiral. The eventual end product uses all three models to let the students build on information learned in earlier sessions. Research in the field of education by Dr Jerome Bruner has shown that this pattern will give the greatest amount of retention by the student population as a whole. The lesson content can be revisited again and again for the benefit of some of the weaker students whilst strengthening the learning of
the stronger students amongst the class. There is defiantly a chain of reasoning or a step-by-step process employed in this lesson framework, each one of the individual pieces of the checklist is important in its own right but we have to explain the reasoning behind the positioning of this particular verification in the overall checklist. All of the paperwork must be shown and the reasoning behind the way in which we check it must be fully explained to all the students on the course. Again following the spiral learning curve the students will learn not only the switch, its location and state, but the reason behind its position in the overall checklist. This has an added bonus of developing independent thinking and promoting comprehension over simple memorization during the lesson. When revisiting the individual parts of the scheme you increase the knowledge of the student. This is in direct opposition to the linear model of teaching where the student learns one part after another in a strict order with no revisiting of previously ‘learned’ units. In the linear model the first indication to the teacher of any lack of comprehension is a failure at the testing stage. With the use of the spiral approach, the teacher has a constant feedback from the student body of their level of comprehension and retention throughout the lesson stages, and
can return to the problem areas to the benefit of an individual or group of students. In our considered (although new to the teaching profession) opinion this is definitely the better approach to the more rounded and complete education of our students.
Individual Unit Objectives and Outcomes.
During the five individual parts of this lesson plan we move from one side of the curriculum matrix to the other. The first two lessons are given in a strict classroom environment using the Product model. They follow the Aims and Objectives framework and therefore can be measured against quantifiable goals. In the case of both lessons the student must be able to list, correctly, the paperwork checks, the safety procedures and switch locations and position prior to entering the cockpit. This has no room for mistakes by the student; it is a safety issue and must be carried out correctly and with no error. These two lessons use the Cognitive and Affective domains, i.e. the students use the knowledge they have gained to
construct and evaluate a foundation for learning. They can also develop the awareness of the reasons behind the structure of the lesson.
The other two lessons in the plan follow the Process model and therefore, as such, have only Aims but no laid out objectives; they move more in the Dynamic area of the educational model and are more flexible in both construction and overall framework than the Objective based lessons. We still have Aims and goals, but the building of these lessons allows certain flexibility in the speed of learning for the students. They can be educated at the optimum speed for each individual student. The teacher has the opportunity to observe and assess the students learning. The teacher within the hangar environment has the ‘hands on’ chance to guide the student along the best path for learning. These two lessons use the psychomotor domain i.e. the students develop Motor or physical skills to enable them to complete the task.
Assessment
The students are assessed in some form or another constantly throughout the five lessons. Formative assessment is carried out continuously during the four practical lessons by use of Socratic questioning to extract the answers from the students. We also use technical observation to assess the students’ demonstrative use of information during the hands-on stages of the lessons. Summative assessment is carried out in three stages of the lessons. The first being in the second lesson when the students complete a ‘gapped’ handout both as a Summative test and as an ‘aide memoir’ for their own use later on in the day. The second, and by far the largest, use of Summative assessment is during the last session and is a complete test of the five lessons activities, checking the students’ safety knowledge. This is a twenty question, multiple choice test which has an overall pass mark of 80%. The final use of Summative assessment is when the instructor fills out the area on the students’ individual portfolio assigned to each lesson. This one paragraph block is designed to allow the instructor to point out areas that require attention and also to comment on positive trends displayed by the
student during this lesson. The students can read and comment on this portfolio at any time and as such forms an excellent form of feedback for both instructors and student.
Overall strengths of the new lesson as perceived by the authors
This group of five lessons was designed to fill a ‘perceived’ gap in the programme that exists within our workplace. This area of the curriculum was lacking a coherent lesson to enhance the safety knowledge of the students prior to working on the aircraft in the hangar environment. Before the construction of this lesson the students were ‘lectured’ on the safety devices with power point slides in a classroom and no ‘practical’ time on the aircraft. They were then expected to confidently carry out the safety checks before entering the aircraft cockpit. It became blatantly obvious to the authors of this assignment that due to the diverse levels of learning abilities and the differences in learning speeds of the students, they were entering the hangar in an unfit state to work safely and confidently on the aircraft. This group of lessons were designed specifically to be, as much as
possible in the military environment, student based and ultimately student friendly. The lessons are constructed to take the students through a logical progression, building levels of knowledge and understanding up to a point that they can confidently assess the state of the engineering paperwork and then carry out the checks of the safety devices before entering the cockpit. More to the point the students can do this by using not only the criteria that they have been shown and learned in the lessons but by constructing their own latticework of checkpoints from the retained knowledge. They know the reasons behind the selection of the paperwork chain and the rationale for the safety checklist. They now know the dire implications of missing a safety point on the engineering paperwork and misinterpreting a safety device within that cockpit. The lessons can be checked on the basis of the three curriculum evaluation dimensions;
Quality. The lessons are effective and successful in that the students are more confident in their abilities and knowledge when they approach the problems in the hangar.
Accessibility. The course is meeting the requirements of the clients or students; They are better equipped for the task and therefore they are safer.
Validity. This concerns whether or not the plan of the lessons remains relevant to the occupational context for which it was designed. In the case of this segment of five lessons it will remain relevant for the near future, and given the level of in-house quality assurance that we as military instructors undergo when the need for adjustments and changes to the lesson become necessary they will be carried out to maintain relevance.
The new lesson format has produced an altogether more self-assured technician, more confident in his or her abilities with the paperwork and safety devices and therefore a more efficient member of the workforce.
Peer assessment from this assignments presentation
The peer assessment from the presentation was extremely constructive. Everyone liked the format and content of the new lessons as explained to the group. By far the largest amount of feedback was to do with the inclusion issues that were mentioned in some depth in the presentation. It was mentioned by the class that because of our background in the military and the ethos of teaching that we came to the Cert Ed course with, it was extraordinary that we could produce such a scheme of work. Admittedly two years ago this would have seemed incomprehensible to both of us that we would even consider teaching in this manner let alone freely admit to trying to change the system at our workplace to reflect these new (to us at least) teaching concepts. Of all the positive feedback this was by far the most rewarding.
In essence there was no negative feedback other than a personal observation that some computers (amazingly) do not talk to each other, and if they do it may not be in the same language. The presentation was marred
by the difference in the perceived animation on our version of PowerPoint and the college version. A minor point but one that can totally un-nerve potential speakers seconds before a crucial and terrifying ordeal in front of their peers.
Annex A
Reference list
Any references used within this component are from the volumes and web pages listed below:
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PETTY, G. (1998) Teaching Today A Practical Guide. 2nd Edition, Great Britain: Stanley Thornes Publishing. 0 7487 3507 0
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GRAY, D. (2001) Training To Teach in Further and Adult Education.
Great Britain: Nelson Thornes Publishing. 0 7487 3366 3
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page quoted on 23rd November 2002.
4.
page quoted on 14th November 2002.
Additional reading for background information from the following sources:
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CURZON, L.B. (1997) Teaching in further education. 5th Edition, Great Britain: Redwood Books. 0 8264 5329 5
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REECE, I. (2000) Teaching training and learning. 4th Edition, Great Britain: Business Education Publishing. 1 901 1888 17 7
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KELLY, A. (1999) The Curriculum Theory and Practice. 4th Edition, Great Britain: Paul Chapman Books. 1 85396 384 4
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ECCLESTONE, K. (1996) How To Assess the Vocational Curriculum. Great Britain: Kogan Page. 0 7494 1706 4
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HERNE, S. (2000) Study To Teach a Guide to Studying in Teacher Education. Great Britain: Routledge Press. 0 415 19112 2
10. http//www.misio.com/personaltitbits.socratic-teaching.com
page accessed 14th November 2002
11. page accessed 28th November 2002
12. page accessed 28th November 2002.
13. page accessed 17th December 2002.
14. page accessed 17th December 2002.
15.
page accessed 17th December 2002.
16. page accessed 27th December 2002.
17. page accessed 27th December 2002.
18. page accessed 27th December 2002.
19. page accessed 27th December 2002.
