Enabling Learning

Unit 4 - Theories and Principles of Planning and
Enabling Learning
The purpose of this assignment is to establish the theories and principles of planning and enabling learning as applicable to my teaching.
I teach at a Further Education college in North West Leicestershire, where I teach a group of eleven mature students. As a group they are self funding on the course and the full cost is recovered from them with the exception of one, who is an apprentice and is therefore funded through his apprenticeship. The qualification they are studying for is a City and Guilds Level Three Certificate in Electrotechnical Technology. By the end of the course they will have the technical knowledge to become electricians but not necessarily the practical
As I have experimented with this type of self directed learning in a previous session. In this way they are very much anti Humanist, where the teaching is linked to self discovery and the tutor’s role is to give guidance and facilitate their self learning, very much the approach taken by establishment providing Higher Education syllabuses. For learners fully achieve in the Humanist style they need to have a great deal of self motivation.
The other school of learning is the Cognitivist where the learning is focused on the acquisition of knowledge of the subject and the learners own experiences are brought to bear so that learning takes place. During these sessions, the knowledge is transferred by the interaction and discovery from the experiences of the class in certain situations or
I use gapped handouts so that the students have to follow the progress through the session. The lesson then proceeds with myself advancing the presentation slides and discussing what is on the slides and relating this to real life situation where possible. Throughout the session the students are asked questions to test their knowledge of the topic and build on this with the PowerPoint. If any of the students have a contribution to the discussion they are encouraged to make their point and widen the discussion, as I may not have the only relevant experiences related to the discussion. The students are at all times encouraged to question me on the topic and my experiences, if questions are not being asked it is possible that students may not be grasping the topic under discussion or they are too shy or embarrassed to ask questions in front of the rest of the class. I like to make sure that the point of the discussion has reached everyone by repeating in an alternative manner or directly asking if someone who looks like they are unsure. That way they, usually, they do not feel embarrassed at not understanding the discussion and I can repeat myself to emphasize the point to the benefit of the whole