PSI Tutor:Mentor (Professional Support Insights)

My name is Charmayne (Char) Paul and I am an Online Tutor:Mentor for students in higher education. I have a Bachelors Degree in Psychology (with Honors) from JCU, Cairns. And my TESOL Certificate was obtained this year~ yah!, from LinguaEdge, UK. Currently I am studying online for my Graduate Tertiary Teaching & Learning Certificate, with USQ.

I have been tutoring and mentoring Social, Health and Business Students for over 5 years.

PSI Tutor:Mentor is not a custom-essay writing service.  Our services provide ongoing study support to aid you to complete assignments, consolidate materials and apply new knowledge, with academic rigor.

You are the one responsible for checking with your tutor/lecturer that drafts etc are going in the intended direction. The final decision as to what suggestions for your assignment/exam that PSI Tutor:Mentor recommends, is yours. How empowering~

Warning: Be prepared to challenge yourself and to excel!

Just a quick post to let you know that another item has been added to the PSI Tutor:Mentor Store (see the page tab below the Header…?). Geographical Boundaries and Global Markets: Outline is an outline for a 1, 000 word assignment with APA formatting to answer these quesitons:

Think about the impact that two (2) of your meals have on our world from an ecological and economic perspective.

1. List all of the components of two of your meals. Then,

a.     Where did each component of your meal originate?

b.    List where you purchased the products from.

c.     Consider the chain of events that took the product to get from the farm/laboratory to your table.

2.     What are some of the benefits of a global market and why?

3.     What are some of the impacts of this global market and why?

4.     Think Globally, Act Locally. What does it mean to you?

5.     Has your research on the global market changed the way you will choose goods in the future? Why or why not?

How would you answer these questions? What are your thoughts on the issues the paper is about?

I am now moving onto Biggs’ (2001) level 3 teaching theory~ tho first to note my mood which I have been neglecting in a couple of the previous posts.

Mood: Happy~ because it is raining and so not humid!

• Student-focused
• Teaching that leads to learning (teach to fish)
• What a student does = learning; not waht teacher does (Tyler, 1949)
• Teacher task is student engagement
• What are the outcomes? + How to teach and assess these?
• TLAs that –> likelihood of achieving outcomes
• Varyingly acceptable levels of acceptability

I really like level 3! The student-focus and teaching to enable learning sounds so obvious. The concept of providing an environment and study support that makes it more likely for students to achieve the desired outcomes is so humanistic. And so far from what I experienced at university. And the situation that many of my student clients are in at the moment.

Teaching Learning Activities (TLAs) that are focused on student engagement and not curriculum requirements to get through, will better enable students to learn to “fish for themselves”. Acceptance of alternative methods of delivery and assessment would definitly take tertiary education into the 21st century. It makes no sense to leave the students out on the waters of knowledge to make the connections themselves between it and action.

Ok~ the Journal Activity for 1.1 is to reflect on my definitions of learning and teaching. As I have already defined learning in a previous post, here is the link, with quotes from it below:

Before the Reading:

Learning is building on prior knowledge to create meaning so I can navigate this world with a purpose. It is the ability to apply new knowledge, not just to “know” stuff. Learning is an exciting adventure of discovery about myself, others and the world I live in so that I can contribute better to my community~ local and global.

After the Reading:

I hadn’t considered the importance of organising material in my definition of learning, and it’s an obvious step really. How can I engage another in a learning activity if I do not know where they are starting from. Organising learning materials so that they build on the previous delivery was something that I expected of teachers, lecturers and students in my education. My definition of learning also neglected to mention the differences between people, which, for a psychologist is quite remiss ~:-) Though, considering that we are each individuals it may be too much to expect one style of organisation and delivery to suit all.

Silly me forgot to write my definition of teaching before the reading~ sigh. Cultivating-patience-moment ~:-)

Teaching is the enabling and empowering of students to achieve goals by providing a supportive environment that encourages engagement in tasks that will make it more likely for them to conceptualize the interrelationship between new knoweldge and application of that knowledge.

What do you think of my definitions? How would you add or modify them to suit your definitions, or that of the reading?

Returning to the Biggs (2001) reading, The reflective institution: Assuring and enhancing the quality of teaching and learning, I will now reflect on my notes for Level 2 of his teaching theory: What the teacher does…

• Transmission model (mug-and-jug; “I’m the expert”)
• Teacher-focused
• Complex knoweldge structures
• Skillful teacher –> Outcomes
  
• Retrospective QA
• Teacher awards
• Means becomes end

This is where my teaching started at I think. I looked to improve my skills to enable and empower. I wasn’t doing it to win awards or to gain other credit as a “good teacher”, I just knew that I didn’t want to be like the role models I had.

I can see now though, that this mindset did place the focus on me, and not the students, which was where I wanted to be. I am definitly ready to transform my delivery of curriculum to enable level 3 teaching~ stay tuned for the next post.

What are your thoughts on level 2 teaching? Do you think that awarding teachers can be detrimental to student learning?