Scholarly record

IMPLEMENTING ACTIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS: A CASE STUDY THROUGHOUT MENTORING STUDENT-TEACHERS AT BABES-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY

Irina Pop Pacurar, Elena Suzana Biris Dorhoi

Abstract

Active teaching techniques are taught as a core element of University Teacher Training courses as applied to each subject of the curricula. Studying a subject in school requires active teaching and learning. But, often the methods used by teachers in the classroom are not differentiated and do not activate students sufficiently. There are cases where even in-service teachers/mentors avoid using active teaching techniques because it seems to be easier not to involve students in the teaching process. Our paper’s aim is to identify the theoretical and practical perspective of our student-teachers in respect of active teaching techniques. A questionnaire has been formulated in order to reveal the knowledge and skills related to active teaching techniques recognized and implemented by student-teachers at Babes-Bolyai University during teaching practice. More than 100 undergraduate and postgraduate students from different academic specialties were asked to answer the questions. The results show that very few students actually are able to use the active teaching techniques in their own lessons. Only a few of them have provided an extensive list of active teaching techniques and are proficient in using them in the classroom. There was also an unexpected result indicating that there are students with no knowledge of active teaching or they are not interested in the topic at all, despite the fact that they are participating in teacher training. Some answers revealed similarities in students’ teaching methods despite the fact that they were following completely different academic study programs. Based on these results, the question arises whether a coordinated approach to teacher training and mentoring in the University is in place and whether both theory and practice of developing active teaching skills of student-teachers should be revised.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/SGEMSOCIAL2015/B12/S3.063

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