teach-a-teacher

Being a teacher is one of the most difficult professions in this world, I would say more than a “9-to-5” job. It starts even before the students enter the class, and ends way after the final year exam. Every year is a new challenge, and an opportunity to improve from the year before. Being a teacher is not just about presenting your knowledge to the outside world, but also to ensure that your audience understands it and able to use it to effect. And that is where my career shall start, as a teacher. Honestly speaking, my career path was already set out for me years ago. In the future, I will potentially be teaching psychology back in my country. And this most likely means that I will be teaching students from Year 12 and 13.

It might not be as clear-cut to how I will use applied behaviour analysis as a teacher. But perhaps it starts with setting foot into the class. Identifying the latecomers is a first step. Of course, it could be for all the different reasons, but for the deliberate “chronic” ones, an intervention could be done. One probable way is by using Dr Nic Hooper’s “late-joke” method. Each student has to tell a joke to the whole class if they come in late. With this, students might start being on time.

The second issue that might come to mind is attention. Trying to get the whole class attention is probably the easier part, but trying to get it fairly consistent throughout the period indeed is more difficult. However, the integration of audio-visuals as well as student activities could effectively help. According to Corbett, Kezim and Stewart (2010), students reported that participating in making videos, as part of class activities was “beneficial and effective technique”. They also found that this aided them in further understanding the course as well as improve their critical thinking skills. Apart from that, Choi and Yang (2011) also reported that the use of video increased students’ "satisfaction, empathy, and learning achievement" in certain situations.

To see whether the interventions worked, I will have to monitor resulting behaviour of the students. If it works, then I might just keep the intervention methods as is, or even improve it. Otherwise, analyse the behaviour again as before, and come up with other intervention methods.

Nadhir Anuar

References:

Corbett, J. J., Kezim, B., & Stewart, J. (2010). Student perceptions of value added in an active learning experience: Producing, reviewing and evaluating a sales team video presentation.

Choi, H. J., & Yang, M. (2011). The effect of problem-based video instruction on student satisfaction, empathy, and learning achievement in the korean teacher education context. Higher Education, 62(5), 551-561.