Teaching and Learning - My four years journey

       

    

Teaching is the best form of learning and learning to improve teaching brings great satisfaction. 

Feedback

Feedback and reflection helps both the educators and students. Educators need feedback from students just as students need feedback on their own work to improve. I learn from students, books, educators, workshop, seminars etc. and try to apply what I have learnt along the way. One can also learn many things by just watching the famous dog trainer, Cesar Millan, on TV training dogs. In Ceasar's own words "I rehabilitate the dogs and train the people". His immediate feedback to his charges (dogs) in training does wonders even to dogs deemed unfit to be trained. The people he trains to handle the dogs are like the teachers learning to manage their students.

My attempt at feedback was to get students in my lectures to fill a feedback form as shown below. Students are to write the content covered in the lectures. This is to ensure they know the topics that are being taught. It allows the not so vocal students to give a feedback on whether the pace of teaching is comfortable to them. On top of that, after every part of a new concepts covered, I would give the students a question and go around the lecture theatre to see if the students understand the mathematical concepts and to clarify their doubts.  Once in a while, students will surprise you with an unexpected feedback.

Maths is fun

I also added a tag line “Maths is fun”to encourage and motivate the students to enjoy while learning maths. I added it to the feedback form and also repeat it as often as I get a chance in class.

The students repeat the tag line in class and on social media. It is satisfying to see the buy in from the students and enjoy studying maths.

Applying Maths in real life

Knowledge needs to be relevant and application is the good assessment of a knowledge transfer. Allowing the students to apply Mathematics learnt in class to real life applications is a challenge but it can be done. I have done it the past four semesters and the assignment outcome is getting better and better each time as I tweak the method and approach. The students are to work in groups of four to six and come up with a written business proposal and present their proposal to business investors who are made up of their own classmates. The business proposal is to use the Mathematics knowledge they have learnt in class. They submit their written proposal on a class blog under Blackboard and are encouraged to comment on their classmates’ work. A sample of the presentation is on the website http://nyprun.wix.com/cmath1

Different teaching environment

I like teaching students in non traditional classroom environments. I use the excellent library facilities when the groups are smaller and even the outdoors when the weather permits. I have led a student leadership camp to Bintan where students show that they have much talent in leading their peers and are talented in many non-academic areas which one can tap to improve the learning process in their academic modules.

Sports coaching

Coaching the NYP athletes in long distance running team is an experience I cherish. It gives me a chance to improve physical performance without much pain which most tend to think is required. It is also another means for me to connect to a different set of students’ needs and allow me to see students from all seven schools in NYP. Coaching allows me a longer time span of a year or more to educate a same set of students. The course requirements for each school and the size and age of the cohort in the different schools also provides me with an overview of the variety of students in NYP. One can get to know more of each diploma offered in each school by just interacting with the athletes.

 The NYP long distance team has improved tremendously since the four years I have been coaching them. The current top athlete, Nabin Parajuli, was awarded the only NYP STAR platinum award given out in April 2014 by the principal. He was given the award as he has three Polite competition records under his name, won the Polite Road Race while anchoring the team to the team trophy for the first time for NYP and has won 3 gold medals at the IVP track and field championship 2013-14, beating all the university and polytechnic competitors in Singapore. He did it running barefoot and his performance have never been achieved by any Polytechnic student before. He has also clocked the fastest 3km steeplechase time in 2014 by a Singapore resident.

Many coaches would have stopped their athletes from running barefoot but research has shown that there is nothing wrong with running barefoot although there are some drawbacks in doing so. I have also tried barefoot running and running with minimalist shoes before knowing Nabin. Zola Budd who ran for both Great Britain (1984 Olympics) and South Africa(1992 Olympics) trains and race barefoot. She was also a former world record holder for the Women 5km. Barefoot running gives the athlete a better feel of the ground and does not alter the natural mode of running. Thus I made no attempt to stop him when Nabin and his teammates indicated they prefer running barefoot. It is a personal preference and it does not hinder performance.

Coaching athletes for high performance has taught me that every single individual is different. The basic knowledge must be applied but it has to be tailored to fit the individual needs in order to maximize performance. One can only work with nature and not go against it. I consider the mind as the most important in distance running performance. Mastering the mind opens the door to improved performance. Having taught mathematics and coaching athletes, I have found more similarities than differences in teaching methods. Both groups need the mind to be acquire knowledge, learn to execute and mastering the skills through repetition.

I have also created a website to encourage NYP students to take up running to lose weight, look good, make friends and/or to improve performance. The website link is at http://nyprun.wix.com/jogging-club

Talks

Education need not be purely academic in nature with assessment in mind. I had an opportunity to give a talk on running which I gave during a lunch time one hour presentation at the library on recent research results done on barefoot and running with shoes. It was well received. I also had a chance to give a talk on injury prevention to the sports captains which gave me a different teaching experience from my normal mathematics classes.

It has been an interesting experience the last four years, experimenting with different modes of teaching and I have been learning much along the way. Many people provided me with the opportunity and have helped me along the journey. Many things have happened over the four years which the above is just a summary and I will attempt to write in more details in other posts. It has been a very satisfying journey thus far. When a student comes up to you and tell you that you have changed their life for the better, you get a feeling that no words are adequate enough to describe it.