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Active learning through the creation of a textbook
Olesya Arzybova
We
realize that an important principle of higher-education instruction
is achieving coherence between students’ learning and scholarly
activities. We need to spur students’ interest in research and
give them the experience of participating in a joint project. One
good way to do this is to organize a group session at which students
create a model of a textbook for future students, based on one of our
course topics. We took this idea from Games—learning,
teaching, leisure (Petrusinsky, 1994, p. 22). Unfortunately, the
authors do not give a detailed description of the suggested strategy,
so what follows is my own elaboration.
In this
article I would like to share my experience of implementing this idea
within the course titled Pedagogical approaches for teaching
children with intellectual disabilities (a third-year class for
students specializing in the teaching of such students). The theme of
the session was Methods for teaching children with intellectual
disabilities.
The
combination of this theme and the format I chose for working with
students were called forth by several factors. Devising a model of a
textbook allows students to carry out an analysis of quite a few
general pedagogical sources connected with the topic and to get
acquainted with different definitions of such constructs as teaching
method and instructional strategy. It enables students to
consider different classifications of teaching methods, to synthesize
this material, and to develop a structural design. But the main
reason for choosing such a task is that, while analyzing materials on
general pedagogy, students can come to realize the remedial nature of
methods used in working with children with intellectual disabilities.
Also they learn how to apply individual instructional strategies.
Unfortunately, in the sources available on the topic, this kind of
information is missing or insufficient. However, group work and other
opportunities presented by the RWCT allow students to elaborate on
the theme, take necessary notes, and form independent conclusions.
... ... ...
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Active Learning Through the Creation of a Textbook