Innovation in Teaching
Innovation in teaching
Jackie Lewis
One of the major concerns of the tourism industry is that there is a mismatch between graduates’ skills, acquired from higher education institutions and the skill sets needed in industry. Many of the current graduates are found to be lacking in creativity, communications skills, analytical and critical thinking, and problem-solving skills (Teo & Wong, 2000; Tan, 2000). As such, there is much need for institutions of higher education to focus on training future graduates to be more adaptable to the needs of the industry.
I personally see the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding is complex and subject to much discussion among all of those engaged in education. However, the educationalists understanding of how students learn has improved considerably in the past couple of decades. It is now established that students are most effective in acquiring knowledge when they use a range of cognitive processes, including asking questions, using knowledge and being shown principles for solving problems, and conveying understanding of complex issues to others. Effective learning goes beyond the memorisation of facts.
I believe education should be designed to effectively educate students by: ✓ Building genuine inquiry and the excitement of discovery into all my travel modules, and ✓ Giving students actual experience in the process of tourism.
In view of the fact that I keep up to date with other providers I have found that travel and tourism courses in many of the Polytechnics and the private providers to date do not do this and are instead characterized by the prevalence of passive rather than active learning, emphasis on factual knowledge without experience in the process of tourism, and a lack of relevance of course material.
Tourism and travel courses offered by private providers are habitually diluted, since they integrate the unit standards in an effort to shorten the national certificate in travel both level
Jackie Lewis
One of the major concerns of the tourism industry is that there is a mismatch between graduates’ skills, acquired from higher education institutions and the skill sets needed in industry. Many of the current graduates are found to be lacking in creativity, communications skills, analytical and critical thinking, and problem-solving skills (Teo & Wong, 2000; Tan, 2000). As such, there is much need for institutions of higher education to focus on training future graduates to be more adaptable to the needs of the industry.
I personally see the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding is complex and subject to much discussion among all of those engaged in education. However, the educationalists understanding of how students learn has improved considerably in the past couple of decades. It is now established that students are most effective in acquiring knowledge when they use a range of cognitive processes, including asking questions, using knowledge and being shown principles for solving problems, and conveying understanding of complex issues to others. Effective learning goes beyond the memorisation of facts.
I believe education should be designed to effectively educate students by: ✓ Building genuine inquiry and the excitement of discovery into all my travel modules, and ✓ Giving students actual experience in the process of tourism.
In view of the fact that I keep up to date with other providers I have found that travel and tourism courses in many of the Polytechnics and the private providers to date do not do this and are instead characterized by the prevalence of passive rather than active learning, emphasis on factual knowledge without experience in the process of tourism, and a lack of relevance of course material.
Tourism and travel courses offered by private providers are habitually diluted, since they integrate the unit standards in an effort to shorten the national certificate in travel both level