The summer courses have started now for Gambia College so I am in the thick of teaching. I have eight weeks of teaching one subject in the ECD teachers certificate course, this means I am teaching three first year classes twice a week for four hours (twelve hours in total). In addition to this I am also teaching a module on ECD for the Primary Teacher trainees who have a five week face to face teaching course. The Primary Teacher Trainees have one year full time of university, a five week summer course and then two years of teaching practicum (teaching in the classroom) during which they complete distance education modules and return for a five week face to face course over the summer.
All in all I am teaching 15 classes with 24 hours of lectures a week. 3 of my classes have around 35 students in them (the ECD lectures) and the rest have between 70 and 80 students. That means in one week I teach around 980 students. Now you just have to hope I am teaching them the right thing!!!
In the ECD classes I am teaching ECD teaching approaches, which is quite a fun class. My students are very enthusiastic and get involved in their lectures. I have taken the approach of guiding them rather than showing them what to do. I tell them the teaching approach they should use with certain age groups and then let them show me how to do it. It is amazing what they can do – I have put in a video of a much more exciting way to do ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’. I think I am learning more from them than they are from me. The other day I gave them some dominoes blocks – which some of them hadn’t used before and I found out about four more different uses just by watching the way they decided to use them.
Sometimes the activity also showed me what the trainees have missed out on by not having been taught with teaching aids themselves. Some didn’t know a pentagon and hexagon were different, and some didn’t differentiate between large and small shapes. Still it means that the activities mean more to them because they can see how the children will learn from them.
In the PTC course it is much harder. To start with the classes are much bigger, and I only have them for one hour a week for five weeks. It has been very hard to design a module that might cover enough to give them the basics in ECD over such a short time. In addition to that the large classes mean often the students can’t hear me properly and by the time everyone is settled we are 20 minutes into the lecture. Still it is possible and I am finding that it can work.
Occasionally I find a few additional students join us in the classroom. One morning the students all came and settle down to find a dog asleep under one of the table (there are stray dogs all over campus, but all very calm and docile and not at all bothered by the people). My last PTC lecture of the week last week was interrupted when a little kitten walked in looked up at me, stood beside me and started meowing just as I was introducing the lecture. It then jumped up on one of the desks at the front and sat beside me for half of the lecture.
All in all I am teaching 15 classes with 24 hours of lectures a week. 3 of my classes have around 35 students in them (the ECD lectures) and the rest have between 70 and 80 students. That means in one week I teach around 980 students. Now you just have to hope I am teaching them the right thing!!!
In the ECD classes I am teaching ECD teaching approaches, which is quite a fun class. My students are very enthusiastic and get involved in their lectures. I have taken the approach of guiding them rather than showing them what to do. I tell them the teaching approach they should use with certain age groups and then let them show me how to do it. It is amazing what they can do – I have put in a video of a much more exciting way to do ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’. I think I am learning more from them than they are from me. The other day I gave them some dominoes blocks – which some of them hadn’t used before and I found out about four more different uses just by watching the way they decided to use them.
Sometimes the activity also showed me what the trainees have missed out on by not having been taught with teaching aids themselves. Some didn’t know a pentagon and hexagon were different, and some didn’t differentiate between large and small shapes. Still it means that the activities mean more to them because they can see how the children will learn from them.
In the PTC course it is much harder. To start with the classes are much bigger, and I only have them for one hour a week for five weeks. It has been very hard to design a module that might cover enough to give them the basics in ECD over such a short time. In addition to that the large classes mean often the students can’t hear me properly and by the time everyone is settled we are 20 minutes into the lecture. Still it is possible and I am finding that it can work.
Occasionally I find a few additional students join us in the classroom. One morning the students all came and settle down to find a dog asleep under one of the table (there are stray dogs all over campus, but all very calm and docile and not at all bothered by the people). My last PTC lecture of the week last week was interrupted when a little kitten walked in looked up at me, stood beside me and started meowing just as I was introducing the lecture. It then jumped up on one of the desks at the front and sat beside me for half of the lecture.
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