THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIENCE IN MY LEARNING AND TEACHING

PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION AS RELATES TO PEDAGOGY Emphasizes  on learning by doing – hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning lays strong emphasis on problem solving and  critical thinking advocates for the integration of community service and service learning projects into the daily curriculum, emphasis on lifelong learning and social skills, assessment by evaluation of child’s projects and productions to mention but a few.

whereas a teacher continues to grow as an individual and as a professional, he/she gathers a lot of experience both from the surrounding including other teachers, challenges faced as well as good experiences in the process.

As an instructor many factors led me to progressive approach.

 I Vocational training centers there is an increasing number of trainees every other year, and here we train on very expensive machines, to be able to train very well, i opted to train in groups however that time i did not define it as progressive i mean i was doing it to solve some problem. I now realize that group work is not only to solve a problem but to step up collaboration and steer sharing of ideas amongst trainees.

I Started to demonstrate to them how to do some of the skills like cutting with hack saws, filing, use of a power thread cutting machine and many others and set them for practice i think Japanese culture of delivering skills and knowledge but i was doing it for the sake of my lesson plan, i have been empowered to give learners chance to explore their potential, as regards discovery and it is not about finishing my scheme of work, but is much about what has the learner learnt what he or she is able to do.

I have been training projects for both examination and for exhibits but really have not been so much kin about the level of masterly of the skills involved.

i now have learnt that the trainees need to work together, experiment and finally come up with the quality projects, recapitulations of all the steps involved and their challenges they faced and a matter of thinking critically to the real life experience.

i have been i think a surprised teacher using some approach i did not feel it exists. more challenging have been using power point presentations, which i have learnt that this makes the trainees rather passive, and have been using some videos however occasionally and to upper classes like advanced classes. i have learnt that the biggest enemy to learning is a talking teacher and i look forward to create such an experience where learners are exposed to resourceful online tools like educational blogs and educational youtube channels.

Lesson of sharing experience has taught me to prepare a good background for the trainees because if i teach them the same way every other year i would be robbing them of the future whose technology is at a fast track.