International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
St. Martin Tour Academy website described the workshop way ( as taken from their website) as:
“Through Workshop Way, the required diocesan curriculum is organized and taught in a way that instills selfconfidence,
intelligence and a life-long love for learning in each student. With Workshop Way students become
successful learners because all students learn they can make mistakes and be wrong while learning, but that
making mistakes does not diminish their intelligence. Students become self-aware and experience their own
thought and growth. Workshop Way works because teachers set up and maintain an environment that motivates
students to full participation in both workshop and full-class learning sessions..” (St Martin Tours Academy,
2012)
This only means that workshop way is designed to cater diversities in such a way not constraint to the
traditional way of learning. Workshop way fosters a learning environment that sees the skills of the learners as
positive and trying to improve it with the interactive experience.
Group Dynamics
Kelley wrote that “cooperation as a technique and as a way of life is superior to competition” (1951, p. 6).
When people are cooperating with one another they also learn from each other. they develop dependence and
confidence with each other. Human relations is utilized when people are situated to cooperate.
Klep, Wisse and Flyer (2010) studied on the dynamics of group affect which yields several effects on their
performance of tasks. There were 70 three participant work groups who participated. The results show that the
groups performed better on tasks that are creative in nature when they are on a positive mood and performed
better in analytical tasks when they are on a negative mood. It also pointed out on one essential construct which
is group belongingness that refers to the human motivation to be a member or an affiliate with others, this is to
avoid loneliness and alienation. Also, it involves feelings of companionship, connectedness and affiliation.
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995 as cited by Klep et al., 2010)
Sniezek (2007) in her blog pointed out that:
“Groups allow for critical support mechanisms that increase the chance of survival for all group members.
For this reason it is only natural that humans today either unconsciously or consciously form or flock towards
groups. Groups, however, do not possess these survival benefits without important costs such as inter and intra
group competition, inter and intra group conflict, and social shielding from others outside of the group. Group
dynamics is based on group processes that develop within a group that is not present in a random collection of
individuals“.
By this, Sniezek defines group dynamics as a tool to learn and socialize at the same time. Also, with group
dynamics, ideas are shared, processed and assessed thereby promoting a change in an individual. The group is
consists of different people which is why the output of a group is different with the output of an individual alone.
The collaboration of ideas depicts a positive notion that is why as cliché as it is two heads are better than one.....
and so more is better.
Large Class
In a single cohort, a large class may include 50-70 students. Burnett and Krause (n.d.) stated that it is
effective that the learners of the large class are thinking about their topic and are engaged with the information
being taught to them. A few of the strategies suggested by Burnett and Krause (n.d.) are as follows:
1) Be motivated and enthusiastic by capturing student’s attention.
2) Keep it lively by moving around.
3) Encourage interaction and engage with students during lectures.
4) Utility of several interactive activities to apply the learning from the lecture.
5) The need to regularly monitoring students’ understanding.
Furthermore, UNESCO (2006) defined large class as a class of more than 50 learners and as relatively
perceived by teachers. It was stated from the booklet they produced that the students can benefit from large
classes also. Since there is an extensive variety from their group, they can learn and share different ideas from
each other. In their research about teaching strategies for a large class, UNESCO (2006) suggested to involve the
students in facilitating the lessons, that is to make them feel that they can also contribute.
Profile of Learners
The learners were first year high school students of Brainshire Science School in Airport road Pasay city
There were sixty learners, or the total population of the first year high school students of the said school. The age
774