Lesson 2: Trainer – tools: didactics and methods 2.1 What defines a successful teaching and learning experience?
C Lesson 2
Trainers and students encounter each other in a teaching-learning-context to which high quality standards apply. • How is successful teaching and learning defined? • How does a trainer evaluates the outcome of their work? Traditionally, as we know from academic systems, teaching/ learning objectives are developed and then provided. Whether these goals are actually achieved is tested through control measures such as tests and exams. This kind of knowledge transfer is based on the trainer and her or his objectives. The trainer defines what a student has to know and tests the required knowledge or skills, at a certain point in time. But no conclusions with regard to the quality of the learning process itself can be drawn out of this way of teaching. For a fuller evaluation, certain questions help. Example: Did the student enjoy it? Was s/he motivated? Was s/he able to follow? Was the trainer sensitive to individual needs of the students? Some of the indicators of a successful learning environment will include, for example: A high or low drop-out rate, students that later become active in the media (as in our case) or became mediators telling other people about their experiences. This point of view creates a distinct difference to traditional systems of teaching because it focuses on the individuals and accepts that they are entitled to do get the best education they can possibly get. Thus, it dissociates itself from the antiquated belief that one teaching method suits every learner and that the teachers’ only responsibility is the mediation of content without taking particular needs of the students into consideration. Consequently, next to clearly defined educational objectives, the trainer has to have systematic and didactical competences and skills to guarantee design and support of the learning/ teaching process that is established in theory and effective in practice. Module C deals with the mediation of those kinds of skills.
2.2 Educational objectives Educational psychology or pedagogical psychology have been researching the different levels of learning processes for some time now and it would go too far to address this topic at this point.
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