General Chat

:-D

More than us mere mortals obviously.

I'm rather concerned that RTR, who claims to teach believes "the gap between standard teaching paradigms and everyday reality is deep and wide".

There are, and always have been, changing paradigms of the idea of a teacher , but a teacher is pretty poor if their language or philosophy is not able to be understood by their pupils (of whatever age).

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach......

I would have missed a lot of burned fingers and clothes if I had learned to weld on-line!

The first thing they should have taught was that hot metal doesn't look hot!

Sharron .............. that is precisely why the post-secondary colleges here that teach trades are mainly back in person. There is some stuff that can be taught online but the practical work cannot.

It is the same for much laboratory work at the university, it cannot be taught on-line, although it is amazing how much can be learnt that way.

The problem has been to work out how to do the on-site courses safely ......... it's meant dividing classes into at least half, setting up extra stations to work at, getting all the PPE needed, plexiglass dividers at stations, etc etc. I don't know about the UK, but they were NOT allowed to re-open those classes until they satisfied the WorkSafeBC regulations, and the similar workers' regulations in other provinces.

I know in BC that colleges and universities and the teachers there were working almost non-stop from March until September to ensure all those conditions were met, and I'm sure the same thing happened in every other province. You've seen what Caroline's daughter was doing for much the summer in Caroline's post above.

But many science classes at universities and colleges are actually taught in two halves ............ there is the lecture hall and then the laboratory.

The lectures could have upwards of 200 or 300 students there, the laboratories a maximum of about 40 or 50 depending on the size of the lab.

So, the lectures can be done on-line, some of the labs (eg, describing, showing and demonstrating equipment used) can be done online, but then students would go on campus for one lab session a week.

In fact, there are NO lab sessions fro one of the 1st year chemistry classes at UBC, and there has not been for 3 or 4 years!

There is much more to teaching than many people think ................. from my own experience and watching the several family members and friends who are or have been teachers at all levels of education.

You don't need a teaching degree to be a good teacher ............ and you don't think about paradigms, you just think about "how can I get across to this kid who doesn't like school and every other teacher hates"!