Introduction to SCALS

Facilitation style is an outcome of a few things. 

• 1.     An understanding of the student needs with respect to their age, interests, social background, etc.;
• 2.     Our experiences of being a learner and social background, as facilitators;
• 3.     Insights about one’s own belief systems and values and its linkage to the aspirations;

It is the combination of all the above-mentioned factors that makes up the teaching philosophy. 

What lies under all these exercises?  Why are we focusing on understanding these aspects of facilitation?

One can believe that the common thread that lies beneath all these is the will to help a learner become better than before; an attempt to create a learning environment that is open to allow individual learners to find one’s own space, learn the skills to become competent and face the real world situations effectively.

At the same time there is an urge to become a better facilitator; identify means through which each of us could develop further and scale newer heights in terms of facilitation practice.

To take facilitation to the next step, we are going to be focusing on some hands on strategies of putting student centered learning to practice.   This module is called Student Centered Active Learning Strategies or SCALS in short.  We will be focusing on what it means to be student centered in terms of classroom interaction as well as planning of our sessions.  We will understand facilitation as a continuum between teacher-centered learning and student-centered learning.   There will be activities created around strategies that will help us implement student centered learning in our classrooms and create a lesson plan that will demonstrate the understanding of the same.

To summarise some of the key activities you would engage in –

1. a)    Understand the TCL-SCL continuum
2. b)   Get deeper understanding of SCL as a methodology
3. c)    Learn and use a few of the strategies that are based on Student Centered Learning
4. d)   Demonstrate a student centered class through a small video
5. e)    Get a larger picture of what blended learning is and how you can use it in your own way

We hope that this module will help you gather some tangible tools that can be used with your students.

Good luck with the module.

The MasterCoach Team.