Does your child’s school teach your child to take notes? This may sound like a very trivial question but a school that goes out of the way to teach its student population the art and science of note-taking shows the degree of commitment that the school has towards teaching your child to be independent learner. The term “independent learner” or “independent learning” is often been used by schools to catch the attention of parents who want their children to have the virtues of an independent learner instilled while their children are in school. Parents know that this is one of the qualities that the future workforce is expected to possess.

Yet referring to my original question again, how many schools actually teach students to do effective note-taking? Note-taking is a basic skill that everyone needs if he is to be able to learn effectively. Through effective note-taking, the student learns to make decisions about what is important about the learning that he is undergoing.  Effective note-taking implies that a lot of thinking is done by the student to help him sort out the relevant from the irrelevant and to get the information into some organized and effective structure. A student will also be a very much more active learner if he makes his own notes. Independent learners need to be active learners, in fact they have to be pro-active about their learning.

But do schools actually encourage this pro-activity with regards to student learning? To put it another way, do schools actually encourage students to be lazy? The truth is many schools do, and this is true even of the  higher educational institutions. Teachers and lecturers have been guilty of spoon-feeding students with stacks of notes. Today, some educational institutions, like some the polytechnics in Singapore, take pride that their students can get access to lecture notes online. Pride in their new ICT ability to store notes online takes precedence over real learning in such cases.  It seems that today, even at the tertiary levels of education, notes are expected to be given out even though one would expect that at least at that level, students should be encouraged to be more independent and take greater responsibility for their learning. This spoon-feeding is often seen as “good” for the students because it helps the students pass the examinations because the lectures are usually geared to the questions in the examinations.

It seems that if the goal is to produce students who are examinations smart, schools will continue to dish out notes to their students. However, it ought to be noted that such practices do not contribute in any way to the making of an independent and life-long learner. Educational institutions must make a serious effort to get students to be independent learners. It reflects poorly on such educational institutions if the basic skills of independent learning is not emphasised.

Getting certification is so easy with testking 642-972 online training. Just download the testking PW0-104 dumps and testking E20-501 study guide to practice and pass exam on first attempt guaranteed.

In the Middle Ages, what kept alchemists busy was the elusive search for the process  to create gold. The ancient Greeks had it much easier, with fables of King Midas and his Golden Touch. Today, many schools, including schools in Indonesia, are also looking for their version of the Midas Touch, a quick surefire way of creating gold. Privately-owned schools do have the goal of making financial surpluses at the end of each year. This is perfectly acceptable.

The alchemist and the search for gold

However, in their rush to make profits, some schools in Indonesia very quickly tag themselves on to foreign school models with foreign examinations or highlighting the presence of computer labs in the schools. They would look for administrative systems from abroad. Many of such schools in Indonesia try to follow the model in Singapore. But what remains key to ensure good academic excellence is often overlooked because they are harder to achieve and it takes a little more time than quick-fix measures.

The key area that all schools must look into is the quality of the teachers. Teachers define the quality of teaching that takes place in a school. It is not the curriculum or syllabus. Good teachers can more than make up for a poor curriculum. Curricula and syllabi can never fire the imagination of students while good teachers can. Good teachers can make lessons seem easy. The latest ICT hardware will not make much of a difference to the learning in school because it is only useful for education in the hands of skilled teachers.

Schools in Indonesia that rush to call themselves Sekolah Berstandar internasional (SBI) or “schools of international standards”, without paying much attention to teacher quality through investment in good teachers and their training, are deluding the parents who send their children to such schools, and themselves in the long run. This is especially true since the majority of teachers teaching in Indonesian schools do not have proper teaching qualifications. This includes the expatriates who teach there too. The lack of attention to teacher quality will eventually show. Parents and school administrators cannot afford to let this happen because the ones who will bear the brunt of poor quality teaching are the students.

To state the obvious, teaching is done by teachers, not good administration, nor a bank of computers on its own nor an international curriculum or international examinations. There is no Midas Touch in teaching. There are no quick fixes. What is required is good quality teaching by well-trained and highly motivated teachers.

If there is one fundamental about successful teaching that all teachers must adhere to is this simple maxim, “There is no teaching if there is no learning.” This maxim shows that teaching and learning are simply two sides of the same coin and one cannot exist without the other.

If only teachers remember this simple yet powerful maxim, no teacher will simply rush through lessons with the goal of “covering” the syllabus for the academic year. The maxim means that the teacher must always pause to check if the learning that the teacher hopes to have taken place among the students, has actually taken place.  It means that the teacher would be making continuous assessment of the learning that is taking place. The teacher does not even wait till the end of the lesson  to check for learning. Assessment is done as regularly as the teacher’s heartbeat during the lesson. At every stage of the lesson the teaches assess if the students are still “with” the lesson and does not proceed any further until what needs to be learned first, is learned. This may seem commonsensical but alas in the factory-like assembly line system that most schools adopt, common sense is often sacrificed for speed and administrative efficiency.

The maxim also calls for teachers to take even greater care in the preparation of their lessons. They would have to be clear about the objectives that they have set out for the lesson because the assessment of the learning that has taken place is dependent on these objectives. Key to the planning of the lessons would be knowing where the assessment of the learning is to be done and also the awareness of how the assessment is to be done.

In the planning of the lesson, the teacher also takes into account the prior knowledge that the student has, to make the learning a naturally smooth process rather than an intellectually and emotionally jarring experience. The teacher would ensure that the learning is constructed and properly scaffolded so the transition from one learning stage to another is not only smooth but also naturally progressive cognitively.

In the planning also, all learning and teaching aids used must also be geared towards making learning as easy as possible. These teaching aids may be traditional ones or more modern ones like the use of ICT tools. Teaching aids, including all teaching technologies, are never to be used for their own sake. They are to be used only if it helps in a smooth learning process.

In the effort to ensure a smooth progression of the lesson, the teacher must also anticipate potential problems that students are likely to face during the course of the lesson. This may include problems with understanding concepts or confusion in the mental operation of routine tasks or skills. This will make the teaching and learning experience a more pleasant intellectually and be an even emotionally stimulating one for both teachers and students.

The goal in every classroom is for the learning experience to be as intellectually and emotionally liberating as possible. By upholding the maxim, “There is no teaching if there is no learning,” teachers will avoid the common pitfalls of poor teaching. Most of all, students will know that their teachers really care about their learning and the former will make that extra effort to be successful in their learning.