Effective teaching for cognitive learning

GNA Feature by Kofi Ashiboe-Mensah, PhD.

Accra, July 24, GNA – Teacher education is a complex and multi-faceted process, made up of initial teacher training, in-service training and lifelong learning (Anamuah-Mensah, 2006).

Definitions

While pre-service teachers take serious look at acquiring the content knowledge and pedagogical skills from the colleges and universities, the in-service teacher must engage in numerous continuous development training activities after their formal training to sharpen their professional skills.

To emphasize this point, teacher education is to provide a comprehensive programme through pre-service and in-service training to lifelong learning that would produce competent, committed, and dedicated pre-tertiary school teachers to improve the quality of education that will empower the learner to contribute to national development (Adegoke, 2003); Benneh, 2006).

With respect to producing good quality graduates at the work place and to the next educational ladder, teachers as facilitators of classroom activities must be effective in their instructional processes.

For example, there have been low performances of learners at the basic education in Ghana, where JHS 2 students performed poorly as compared to students from other participating countries in the last four Trend in International Mathematics and Science Score (TIMSS) programmes in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 (Mullis et al., 2012).

Reasons for failure

One of the reasons for this failure is inadequate teacher preparations and training which led to ineffective delivery of lessons (T-TEL, 2016). This finding resonates well with Saritas & Akdemir (2009), who stated that poor achievement rate at all levels is as a result of ineffective instructional strategies and methods, teacher incompetency in education, and lack of motivation and concentration in learning.

Consequently, colleges of education have considered as their primary responsibility of producing high performing teachers with quality training in effective pedagogy. To deliver quality education in Ghana’s schools, teachers are to be equipped with skills, knowledge and experiences to enter the classrooms with confidence and professionalism.

This is because, learners have a range of needs and interests; therefore, teachers must employ different approaches to ensuring that learners learn well to prepare for the next level of their educational pursuit to enter the modern-day world of work and other endeavours in life.

What to do

In a bid to enhancing this quality teaching and learning process for suitable outcomes, teachers must redirect their teaching strategies, formulate effective instructional guides, create learning experiences and evaluate learning outcomes to determine effective cognitive learning that ensures students’ understanding of what they learn.

The new curriculum in Ghanaian schools stipulates that teaching and learning are to be anchored on critical thinking, problem-solving, communication and collaboration, creativity and innovation, cultural identity and global citizenship, digital literacy, and leadership and personal development (MoE, 2019).

So, every teacher is required to ensure that learners demonstrate skills from the current classroom activities.

These skills are not to be treated as topics during lessons, but supposed to be incorporated in every lesson that the teacher delivers.

This is because teachers prepare the learners for higher educational pursuits and the world of work. These competencies therefore, can mainly be acquired if teachers are committed to undertake various professional training programmes at different times.

The development trainings will equip teachers to deliver appropriate and thought-provoking lessons to students who will consequently demonstrate the purpose of education.

Students seem to learn when they receive good tuition and understand concepts that are taught or introduced to them by their teachers.

According to Stanford (2001), teacher effectiveness is the degree to which a teacher achieves desired effects upon students learning for skills acquisition.

Alternatively, teacher effectiveness is how much and how well students achieve and demonstrate commitment and flexibility to academic and professional performance in the face of difficulties. Teachers’ responsibility therefore, stems from the fact that among multiple factors within schools, the quality of teachers is so extraordinarily important to the lives of the students.

Thus, teachers matter most in terms of student learning for academic and professional achievement to support national economy.

In the view of Ismaila et al., (2014), teaching effectiveness is the dominant factor that influences student academic and professional growth.

Framework

It is in this direction that the National Teacher Education Curriculum Framework (NTECF, 2018), states that education can succeed if curriculums are structured around the four pillars of learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and learning to be.

The thematic areas have been driven by the idea that fundamental changes are needed in the classrooms to sustain the engagement of all stakeholders with particular reference to the teacher. Fundamentally, the teacher is at the centre of every academic work for students’ academic and professional growth and development.

The teacher provides critical direction for the learners to discover concepts through investigation, where they are encouraged to self-check their learning process, approximate issues, reflect and reason cognitively while the teacher studies the learners’ work to evaluate their thinking capacity (Piaget, 1970).

A serious and knowledgeable teacher will do everything possible to get his/her students to work hard, based on the activities he/she (the teacher) rolls out in the classroom.

In observing lessons, Ismaila et al., (2014) mentioned four main areas that constitute effective teaching; these are teacher content and pedagogical knowledge, language and effective communication, arranging for meaningful learning tasks and ethics of care for the students.

Role of teacher

In all these, students’ motivation which plays a key role in the teaching and learning process is paramount and must be spearheaded by the teacher (Gelman & Greeno, 1989; Hannula, 2006; Middleton & Spanias, 1999; Singh, Granville & Dika, 2002; Walker & Guzdial, 1999) as academic achievement is related to both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors which the teacher must develop.

With respect to intrinsic motivation, the learners act for internal satisfaction as interest, curiosity and enjoyment in line with their own values and internal regulation (Chirkov, Vansteenkiste Tao, & Lynch, 2007) with two crucial factors as competence and autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 1985).

Extrinsic motivation is when learners engage in learning for external rewards such as promotion, approval from teacher, parents and peer and rewards in any form (Mueller, Yankelewitz & Maher, 2012). Extrinsic motivation is related to the individual learners aligning the external forces provided by social setting to advance their personality, and supported by internal regulations and acting in the context of external causality to their advantage (Ryan & Deci, 2000a). Following this, Knowles (1975) indicated that self-directed students take the initiative in their learning process when the teacher diagnoses their needs to formulate goals, identify learning resources and evaluate the learning outcomes (Saritas & Akdemir, 2009).

In this sense, students are motivated to make connections between facts and ideas, which results in enhanced learning with deep understanding of concepts.

The teachers’ role therefore, is to engage students by helping them to organize and take initiative on their own to self-direct and explore new ideas for growth. (Strommen & Lincoln, 1992).

Conclusion

In conclusion, teachers are to tighten the nuts and bolts of good teaching through the preparation for lessons, respecting their students, ensuring flexibility in the face of difficulty, showcasing content and pedagogical knowledge, revealing good spirit, playing the role of a model, and preparing some more.

Author is Quality Assurance Officer at Ho Technical University

GNA

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