[PG26] はじめての小学校授業（2）：大学生から小学生への教える対象変換の教授方略の調整について
Adjusting Teaching Strategies from Teaching College Students to Teaching Primary School Students
Keywords:小学校, 授業
Introduction
The author has been teaching at the university for more than 20 years. Recently, there’s a “university society responsibility” program from the general study department inside the campus asking whether it is possible to voluntarily teach a primary school class located not too far from the university. The program is aimed at helping the school which has not much teaching resources. That makes the author has the very first time experience to teach the primary schoolchildren.
After checking with the authorities of the primary school, they said there’s a one semester course ”Nature, Life, and Technologies” for the senior class, and it will be a good chance to promote knowledge of the students through the course. With this requirement in mind, the author then proposed a subject which covers most of the contents in the class title. i.e., “Bicycle and Life”
Teaching Strategies
The author is enthusiastic in cycling and have years’ experiences in the mechanics of the bike. Together with the mechanical engineering background, there must have lots of mechanical knowledge that could be infused into the class. Therefore, the contents design of the course covers all the knowledge in cycling starting from introducing various kinds of bicycles, the clothing for cycling, safety facilities for cycling, the riding skills, the correct operation of derailleur system (Figure 1), the tire repair, and bike maintenance, etc. Furthermore, following each of those weekly subjects, it is also accompanied with the related technology or general knowledge each time. Such as finding the center of gravity of a bike, and measuring the total weight of the bike with the general body weight scales by having the concept of resultant forces.
Though, in the primary school, the class lecture each week lasts only 40 minutes, it is not easy to teach all you want under such short time period. That’s always not easy to adjust immediately from the past experiences in teaching university classes. Also, for keeping the students’ attention and having interest throughout the class, it is integrated those key issues as listed below in the class:
1.Outdoor cycling teaching especially for those beginners.
2.Practice in the class when teaching the riding skills, such as shifting the derailleur gears.
3.Hands-on bike repair practices such as the broken tire repair.
4.The importance of tools selection.
5.Certificate of completion & gift award.
Conclusion
For being able to attract the children’s attention, it is a good way by showing the real objects instead of pure oral lecture. For the hands on practices, it can make the teaching vivid and interesting. Most importantly, it was found that there are two students performed quite excellent in the hands-on works even it was told later that they have learning disorder in other general courses. Nevertheless, the author even never noticed their learning problem for the whole semester, because they performed better than other students in this course. And they always provide helps in the class, for instance, by distributing handouts to peer students. This gave us a shock that evaluating students with the existing system can not reveal other aspects they might be good at.
As mentioned earlier, other than teaching bicycle related information, the author also bring mechanical tools and other daily life utilities to the class to explain their use and also ask each of them to test it. Finally, in the closing class of the semester, each of them are issued a certificate of completion & a gift award. But in the meantime, when they came forward to be rewarded, the author asked each of the students what they had learned in this course? Amazingly, each student says different topic they have learned in this course, and only two out of a total 28 students have the same answer, even those tiny things the author demonstrated in the class, such as the example in fixing the broken eyeglasses after falling down in attending a cycling event. This gave us a very deep impression that kids like them in the ages of 11~12 years old, can grasp some knowledge of their interest deeply.
The author has been teaching at the university for more than 20 years. Recently, there’s a “university society responsibility” program from the general study department inside the campus asking whether it is possible to voluntarily teach a primary school class located not too far from the university. The program is aimed at helping the school which has not much teaching resources. That makes the author has the very first time experience to teach the primary schoolchildren.
After checking with the authorities of the primary school, they said there’s a one semester course ”Nature, Life, and Technologies” for the senior class, and it will be a good chance to promote knowledge of the students through the course. With this requirement in mind, the author then proposed a subject which covers most of the contents in the class title. i.e., “Bicycle and Life”
Teaching Strategies
The author is enthusiastic in cycling and have years’ experiences in the mechanics of the bike. Together with the mechanical engineering background, there must have lots of mechanical knowledge that could be infused into the class. Therefore, the contents design of the course covers all the knowledge in cycling starting from introducing various kinds of bicycles, the clothing for cycling, safety facilities for cycling, the riding skills, the correct operation of derailleur system (Figure 1), the tire repair, and bike maintenance, etc. Furthermore, following each of those weekly subjects, it is also accompanied with the related technology or general knowledge each time. Such as finding the center of gravity of a bike, and measuring the total weight of the bike with the general body weight scales by having the concept of resultant forces.
Though, in the primary school, the class lecture each week lasts only 40 minutes, it is not easy to teach all you want under such short time period. That’s always not easy to adjust immediately from the past experiences in teaching university classes. Also, for keeping the students’ attention and having interest throughout the class, it is integrated those key issues as listed below in the class:
1.Outdoor cycling teaching especially for those beginners.
2.Practice in the class when teaching the riding skills, such as shifting the derailleur gears.
3.Hands-on bike repair practices such as the broken tire repair.
4.The importance of tools selection.
5.Certificate of completion & gift award.
Conclusion
For being able to attract the children’s attention, it is a good way by showing the real objects instead of pure oral lecture. For the hands on practices, it can make the teaching vivid and interesting. Most importantly, it was found that there are two students performed quite excellent in the hands-on works even it was told later that they have learning disorder in other general courses. Nevertheless, the author even never noticed their learning problem for the whole semester, because they performed better than other students in this course. And they always provide helps in the class, for instance, by distributing handouts to peer students. This gave us a shock that evaluating students with the existing system can not reveal other aspects they might be good at.
As mentioned earlier, other than teaching bicycle related information, the author also bring mechanical tools and other daily life utilities to the class to explain their use and also ask each of them to test it. Finally, in the closing class of the semester, each of them are issued a certificate of completion & a gift award. But in the meantime, when they came forward to be rewarded, the author asked each of the students what they had learned in this course? Amazingly, each student says different topic they have learned in this course, and only two out of a total 28 students have the same answer, even those tiny things the author demonstrated in the class, such as the example in fixing the broken eyeglasses after falling down in attending a cycling event. This gave us a very deep impression that kids like them in the ages of 11~12 years old, can grasp some knowledge of their interest deeply.