Learning Skills across the Curriculum

Day 3: 10 October 2014
Session 3: 3.00 p.m - 4.30 p.m
Slot: Learning Skills across the Curriculum
Tutor: Carole

Classroom Learning Outcomes

By the end of the session, students will have:

• Practiced different learning skills/strategies in English language Classroom.

By the end of the session, lecturers will have:

• Identified learning strategies that are useful for learners and how each skill can be used.
• Discussed best strategies to promote active learning in the classroom.

Suggested Activities

Identifying Learning Strategies

Task: Match the descriptions with learning skills.

Instructions
1) Teacher gives two sets of cue cards.
2) Teacher asks students to match the description with learning skills.

Suggestion

Students should be exposed to different kinds of learning skills or strategies. Teachers need to be creative to invent new strategies and develop a plan for an active learning activity.

Teaching Tips

This lesson focuses on learning skills/ strategies that our students need to develop. 

Some of the proven ideas on effective learning:

• Active learning: 
• Learning by doing something. (e.g: Autonomous Learning and enquiry approach).
• Applying learning: 
• Using what has been taught.
• Retrieval practice: 
• Testing what you have learnt by explaining something to someone.
• Desirable difficulties: 
• Having to remember/having to explain to somebody else/having to say ‘why’ in your own words.
• Enquiry-based learning: 
• Learning that involves students in problem solving (Task-based learning)

Some of the teaching tips to share:

Active learning promotes independent and creative thinking. Students need opportunities to engage with materials/activities in order to practice critical thinking skills. Teachers should facilitate this process by asking students to analyze, synthesize, summarize or apply the knowledge that they have learnt.

Distributed practice (spaced learning)-teaching and learning is more effective when process is spaced/distributed over a longer period of time rather than massed practice. Practice is broken up into a number of short sessions.

Reflection

During the lesson we discussed some of the learning skills that could be used in the classroom for example transferring information, note taking, skimming and scanning, reviewing and so on. This lesson was very useful because it exposed us to different kinds of learning skills that are useful for learners in English learning situations. The discussions we had were useful in helping us understand the learning skills that could be promoted in the course that we teach and why it is important to develop active learning in the classroom.

For our students, we could promote learning skills such as information transfer or locating information for the topic on Processes and Procedures. Teachers should come out with an activity that is more challenging that requires students to transfer information from one source to another, for example reading an explanation then completing a diagram with key words from the explanation.

At the end of the lesson, there was also a discussion on what is active and passive learning. As teachers, we should promote active learning where the students are actively involved with the materials given to them such as solving problems, carrying out investigation, or cooperating with others. There are a number of teaching strategies that can be employed in order to promote active learning to the students and to make sure that students are engaged in the learning process such as group discussion, problem solving, role play and case study. Besides being more challenging, these activities can also enhance interpersonal and critical thinking skills, and increase motivation. Learning strategies are effective techniques that help students to remember and use what they have learnt in the long-term, not just the short-term.

Some of the major characteristics associated with active learning strategies:

• Students are engaged in activities 
• Students are more motivated
• Students can receive immediate feedback from their teachers
• Students are involved in higher order thinking.

Prepared by:
Wan Sukartini bt Wan Samiun
Politeknik Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah