Resources come in all shapes and forms including books, stationary, worksheets and the use of IT. Gravells, (2010)suggest that resources should stimulate learning and promote interest in the taught subject. Resources should be inclusive as well as a tool to assess learners.
When delivering my community sports leadership courses, one of the key issues I have around resources, is having lack of them and nowhere to use them. This is the complete opposite with my teaching at College as I have access to everything from PowerPoint, to an electronic whiteboard.
Smartphones
Knowing the resources you have will help you shape the way you set out to deliver your course. When I deliver in the community I am aware that all I will have is a classroom with chairs and if I am lucky a whiteboard. Therefore all my pre planning goes into paper resources including worksheets and I will design my course where there is a mix of practical and theory throughout the day to keep the leaners engaged. This also makes the course inclusive as people learn in different ways including visually, audio and kinaesthetically. I tend to have many learners with smart phones who will openly use them, especially as this is community course they have paid for and we do not hold strict rules of no phones policy, as in schools. The learning is based around humanism. According to Huitt (2001), humanism is when people act with intent and based upon their own values. As the use of smartphones was becoming increasingly normal for one of my classes, I decided to adapt the lesson and to make use of the smart phone technology. This was not something I had originally planned. I split the class into groups of 3 and advised them they had a task to design a competition format. I provided them with the competition to design and that they then had to present this to the rest of the group. The task required research to be done and the use of their mobile phones to access the information. Suddenly the learners were raring to go and all the texting, whatsapping and Facebook had been put to one side. On reflection I realised the use of the smart phone is a great way to engage learners and allow them to be innovative in expressing what they mean and have learned. I had one group who created a video on their phone and presented this to the group. This format also allows me to assess the learners in a formative method and gave me the opportunity to ask directed questions. I will definitely make more use of the resources my learners have and start to incorporate this in my lessons.
Interactive white boards in Schools
The interactive whiteboard is an excellent tool, however due to the cost you will not see it in every teaching and learning environment. I have had no formal training on how to use an interactive whiteboard so found it quite complex and over-whelming to start off with. I managed to find my way around and it was not as difficult as I expected. I found learning using the interactive board had its advantages as it was easy to amend work, environmentally friendly due to not having reams of paper worksheets printed , everything was in colour and learners seemed more attentive and engaged to what I was teaching as oppose to the having a worksheet in front of them and working from that. The board also gives you the opportunity to engage your learners and have them make use of the board and improve their IT skills. An example of this is when I used the board to introduce a lesson on the bones in the human body. Rather than me labelling the parts, I mixed all the names of the human bones and then had learners come up one at a time dragging the name of the bone to the correct part of the body via the whiteboard pen. As IT is becoming more and more apparent in today’s society it is imperative we incorporate ICT into our lessons. Using the whiteboard I had the whole class engaged and found it used all three learning styles. Kinaestic for those who like to be doing something, audio for those who like to hear what is been said, in this instance if the bone was attached to the correct part of the body the whiteboard would say the full name of the bone, and finally visual for those who like to see what they are learning.
Reverences:
Gravells, A (2012) (5th Ed). Preparing to teach in the lifelong learning sector. Croydon .SAGE Publications
Huitt, W. (2001). Humanism and open education. Educational Psychology Interactive. [Online] Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved September 11, 2007, from the URL: http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/affsys/humed.html [24.04.2014]
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