On the second of May, I wrote the article 'Science Around Us (5)'. You may also wonder whether I will draw the the grandma pounding away the spices when I actually teach in the class. My answer is 'absolutely yes'. You see, one of the reasons I take the trouble to draw these drawings that accompany my articles in this blog is to promote the using of illustration in teaching--a tool that I feel is very effective and something that I have been promoting since the mid 90's.Some critics, for whatever reasons, may say whatever they like to deny the importance of the usage of illustration in teaching. (Similarly, I have previously heard from some science teachers saying that experiments are not useful and time-wasting. Their rational is that, why the trouble doing the experiments when the theories are already known?)
You cannot deny that the success of a teaching and learning session depends a lot on how well you can 'connect' with the students. Let's imagine that each student in the class is like a television. Whether the television can receive any program from various broadcasting stations will depend on many factors, one of which is whether it is connected to the power supply and another is whether the switch is switched on. Likewise, you need to 'switch on' the students. There is a joke among some serious observers (again a serious joke?) that sometimes in a supposed-to-be 'teaching and learning' session, teaching occurs (which is quite obvious) but learning does not occur. The students are not switched on. Unless a teacher is not bothered at all about his own teaching effectiveness and hence his reputation, he will probably be very interested to learn various skills to 'switch on' the students.
In this respect, let me suggest that illustration is a good connector as well as a switch. Before I go further, I hope nobody will start questioning--How can you say this? Have you made a study, research, written a master or even PhD thesis? .....Sorry, I have no time for all these at the moment. When my students get interested, can understand and happy to follow my lesson, my intuition tells me that I am on the right track. (That brings me to an interesting encounter over the phone between a 'Dr....' and I more than a year ago. I was requested to share my personal experience on turning around a so-called difficult school in a national education convention. In the midst of my heavy schedule, I was only able to submit my abstract before submitting the actual paper a few days before the deadline. Actually I have just started to write the paper and was obviously struggling for time. Then, I got a call from this Dr.... who was obviously not too happy over a few things. Firstly, he wanted my full paper, not my abstract. Fair enough, I thought and it was my fault--I should not have promised when I was so busy. Secondly, he was not happy with my abstract--He said there was nothing much in the abstract. Fair enough, after all he was an academic and I was just an ignorant practitioner. Thirdly, he asked me what theories did I use in solving those problems in the school. With that, I did not continue writing the paper and of course declined the offer to present the paper. After that encounter, my main fear was that I would disappoint the audience of the convention because, say for example, I could not quote a theory and the originator of the theory that led me to meet the local leaders to solve discipline problems of the students from their villages.) Sorry for another long deviation. I hope readers interested in 'illustration' do not feel cheated by these deviations.
So, in this first installment of 'Illustration And Teaching' I would just like to say that when you start a simple drawing, you can actually start to draw their attention. Further more, draw it in such a way that leave them guessing what's next. They may say -- Hey, an old woman's head. Why does the teacher draw an old woman? What is she holding? What is she doing? What has it to do with today's learning?....Hey here and hey there...You see, there is some fun, excitement and of course connection...Today's lesson must have something to do with 'nasi lemak'. So, 'on' the 'switches' and let's get going with the lesson on momentum and impulsive force!
To be continued....
2 comments:
Hah, nasi lemak, that reminds me of something...
When something new or unorthodox or radical was created, be it a thing or a method, people's first reaction was to find a way to disapprove it. and sometime they tried too had that they forgot that, the easiest way was to use or apply it, and see whether it works.
This is how people do things in USA, we don't care where it comes from or which ancient theory it based on, if it works, we use it. Theory? who made the theory? will Einstein be Einstein if he had to link all his thoughts to Newton's theory? Get out of the comfort zone and try something new. if it works ,good,go on; if it doesn't work, try others. we shouldn't bury our head into the endless hole in search of Socrates theory to disapprove something so that we can run away from it.
To me, learning science with pictures definitely works. at least it turned my switches on. I still remembered my physics teacher(my dad) drawing a poor man whose leg was pierced by a high heel to illustrate pressure. trust me, you will never forget that..
Dear son,
Thanks for your comment. I am glad that you still remember the poor man being pierced by the high heel shoe. Not much of piercing now-a-days because I do not teach Physics any more (except for the once a week session with your younger brother at home). That is why I am sharing my experience through the blogosphere.
Post a Comment