I attended a trades forum last year, one of the presenters was Peter Mellow (AUT) who spoke about ‘21st Century Learners and Web 2.0 - implications for Learners’. Part of his delivery spoke about classroom layout moving away from the rank and file, of the normal class room layout. He went on to say having students face each other creates interaction and a sharing of ideas, this is also ideal for team work, which brings me to my strategy for teaching Unit 21911 ‘Safety in an Engineering Workshop’.
My aim was to facilitate student centred learning, team work and to take the students out of their comfort zone by presenting their work to the class. As a class we had discussed various hazards and hazard control methods, some of this had included power point presentations. There task was using a template and a given situation to identify 3 hazards with a prevention procedure for each, to be written in the positive sense and to identify any personal protective equipment (PPE) or operating equipment that may be required.
Situation | Identified Hazard | Procedure |
Chemicals | 1. | 1. |
PPE & Equipment | 2. | 2. |
3. | 3. |
To facilitate the task I rearranged the classroom into blocks of four (students facing each other), having a class of 12 gave me the three groups of four, with each group having four different hazards this was to enable each member of the group to make a presentation to the class. Each group was given a large piece of paper and felt pens, the template to draw and set to task.
(Sorry no updated photos of class layout)
Throughout this exercise I am able to work with students to achieve the learning outcomes; this also identifies and focuses on shortfalls in individual student learning. A number of questions are resolved through student peer review (brainstorming)
Presentation of their findings are presented as a group to the class with each individual having responsibility for one of the four situations, this ensures participation. The class is prompted to challenge or critic their findings.
Video link of presentation, it's a bit long but you will get the gist, patience required for it to load.
You may need to register to http://play.op.ac.nz to view link
US 21911/1_S1_20 http://play.op.ac.nz/video/US-219111_S1_2011/e64856403d2a421bebf5e09b09311d9d
Video link of presentation, it's a bit long but you will get the gist, patience required for it to load.
You may need to register to http://play.op.ac.nz to view link
US 21911/1_S1_20 http://play.op.ac.nz/video/US-219111_S1_2011/e64856403d2a421bebf5e09b09311d9d
Fred 
Fred getting students to 'face each other' and work on the hazards in the active way you describe would certainly get them thinking. I imagine the room was buzzing. What was your sense of their level of participation in each group? Also would you say their understanding of the topic was enhanced by using this method?
ReplyDeleteTo help us find the video, we need to know what you called it. You can post the name of the video with the hyperlink embedded in the name - to make it look pretty.