METHODOLOGICAL FRAMES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIVITIES IN HIGHER SCHOOL
E. Martin1, F. Mesa2
1 IES Estuaria (Huelva) (SPAIN)
2 University of Cadiz (SPAIN)
Many initiatives have been proposed in recent times to improve student motivation, learning, academic achievement and quality assurance in university teaching and learning, Most of them are based on innovative practices. The aim of this work is to assist teachers in the development of activities taking into account their beliefs and assumptions about learners, learning, and teaching; the relationship of these beliefs to practice.
A methodological frame defines the interrelations between specific actors of the educational process. We propose five methodological frames, which define the interrelations between
1) the learner and teacher. This frame has some bearing on tools put in work to characterize these interrelations in some way. There is now a movement from a ‘teacher-centred approach’ to a ‘student-centred approach’ to consider each student and each situation individually. On other hand, the use of e-learning to support teaching and learning is now a major trend in higher education, an approach to facilitate and enhance teaching and learning through the use of devices based on both computer and communications technology.
2) the learner and his learning process. The role of teacher in this frame is to provide activities and pedagogic methodologies in order to make easier the adaptation process of learner to a new learning environment and to improve the efficiency of the learning process of students.
3) the educational strategy and its purposes. This frame defines which contents must to be known and what are the skills and attitudes to be acquired at the end of a period of learning. The frame sways the suitable teaching/learning tools for the achievement of goals. Students must learn important skills and attitudes co-incidental to their engagement with discipline specific knowledge. The role of teachers is the setting of goals and objectives, activities from objectives and assessment from goals
4) the actors and community. This frame describes the interrelation’s model between teacher/learner and their commitment with community. This frame opens out the teaching/learning goals to the education for the improvement of social responsibility. Teaching must be treated as a socially mediated activity: human behaviour dynamics have an impact on decisions that cause societal changes, which, in turn, shape human and social dynamics to influence future decisions.
5) the teacher and his teaching process. The role of teacher in this frame is to analyse her/his teaching model and the joined instructional activities and pedagogic methodologies in order to improve the efficiency of the learning process of students and to help learners to develop their multiple intelligences, skills and specific knowledge.
Teachers must consider the methodological frame they want to use and characterise the main features of them, subject to the educational theories and the optimal achievement of results. The basic idea is that teacher and learner get profits from every educational situation, specially the variety of available tools and resources, and from the application of different educational strategies to attain the enhancement of engagement and participation of learner and the improvement of accomplished goals.