Facilitating Learning

"Facilitating Learning" is a collection of over 30 classroom strategies intended to energise students and increase classroom interaction.

According to the publisher, the strategies range from the simple to more complex research-based methods to help students develop better analytical questioning skills. Each strategy includes a summary, a description, lists of materials, time and venue requirements, stages, advantages, disadvantages, and further references. In-text icons throughout the book are designed for quick reference.

From the Preface
"The interactive processes described in this book have been learned by trial and error, reading, attending courses, gaining feedback from students, and discussions with other lecturers and facilitators. The motives for writing the book included a desire to make learning more effective and enjoyable by catering for the many different learning styles in each classroom. It has been a delight to watch students in different cultures energised by these methods. However, the intention has always been to create a ‘safe’ learning environment: one in which both students and lecturers can experiment and learn. In my own teaching I never use a process without a purpose and I always explain the purpose to students. In other words, I try to keep the processes 'transparent'. One of my main goals is to build and maintain trust in the classroom.

I believe it is important that every person develops his/her own style/s of teaching and facilitation. This book is not intended to present prescriptive techniques. I hope it will be used to adapt and create individual approaches. Some of the processes described will of course be more suitable for certain subject areas than others, however, many of the processes are transferable and/or adaptable to a variety of situations. The only limit is the reader’s imagination and preparedness to experiment, take risks and evaluate initiatives. Processes often have a longer usable life span than the content we teach. The processes in this book help students ‘learn how to learn’ in other words they are transferable to other learning situations and contribute to 'life long learning'.

Good luck. I encourage readers to contact me with any feedback or to discuss any of the ideas in this book."

This book is designed for professional development courses for tertiary educators in all disciplines.