What do you think having a teacher does for you?/What's your learning process?

JC 2K3

I've been thinking over the last while, and I'm trying to figure out what role my teachers actually had to play in educating me for the LC.

I've been thinking about my learning process and what having a teacher actually does for me, and I've come to the conclusion, that for me, the teachers I would consider my "best" teachers, would have been the ones who gave me tests the most often, yet left me independant to work through things myself.

In classes I don't reckon I learned all that much. For me, the teacher could explain something or write out how to do a question on the whiteboard a hundred times, but unless I sit down and learn/attempt it myself, I won't know it. In fact, I'd almost say that those classes were a bit of a waste of time. For me, a better method of teaching would be telling us to read and learn a section of the course quietly ourselves and ask them any questions we had during a class. I know many would hate that method of teaching, and I tend to wonder why. Is it that you don't feel things are explained well enough in the book, do you know something after a teacher explains it and not have to sit down with it, or some other reason?

My learning process is something like this:
1. Get a vague knowledge of the concept from listening to the teacher explain it in class(optional).
2. Sit down with the book and read the chapter(s), make sure I understand everything in it. If I don't I go on the internet and google it. Wikipedia usually does the trick. If the internet fails to satisfy my understanding I make a mental note to ask my teacher.
3. Go through the chapter(s) in depth, making shorthand, summarising notes on what's important.
4. Before an exam, go through the chapter(s) with the notes I've made and a rough piece of paper/copy. Write down anything that stands out as unfamiliar to me.

Now of course that's adapted depending on what subject I'm doing, but that's basically it. As you can see, the teacher is only involved in the optional first step, in a rare scenario in the second step and the last step(setting the exam). To me a teacher does not assist my learning all that much.


So, my question to you is, what is your learning process and what role do your teachers play in it?

fionated7

for certain subjects having a teacher was a huge benefit! but when i think about it those were the teachers who allowed me to question what they were saying, attempt things myself and come back to the topic over and over again until i understood.. for the irish exam i definately didnt find the teacher must use, i spent 5th year playing the famous person name game thing n 6th year playing snap and switch..

for maths, sciences and composing paper in music yes teachers played a part.
languages = i might aswell have stayed at home

JC 2K3

Oddly enough French would have been the one subject where I felt having a good teacher would have been etremely beneficial(I had a shít one). For me it would have been maths and the sciences in which I felt a teacher wasn't that much use(necessary for the odd question and setting exams, but I didn't get much out of their classes)

fionated7

well i just didnt get on with my french teacher, so much so i was going to drop the subject.. a serious personality clash!!!
why am i not sleeping? iv my music exam tomoro

cson

Well certainly imo to learn a language having a teacher who is good and has a particular flair for the language is extremely beneficial. For rote learning subjects such as business I felt my teacher did a good job giving us weekly tests, it kept the interest in the subject so to speak.

md99

for the majority - none

for french and economics - the reason i bother attending school

all depends on the subject and the students situation....

(please excuse my previous sloppiness)

Feddd

Can't learn from a book in some subjects due to the immense load of BS added in. I.e. Oliver Murphy's maths and applied maths books(Think thats his name) and that blue economics book. Need a teacher to tell you what parts you can leave out and so on.

And for some subjects, i.e. maths, applied maths and tech drawing, usually when the teacher does it in class you don't really need to go over it at all cause it sticks so well. Maybe the one homework question he gives or whatever and your set.

Really depends on how good your teachers are tbh. I go to Bruce cork and my 6 teachers are great and what they say sticks. But the main role of teachers imo is to let you know what you can and can't leave out.


Maybe the OP just had awful teachers in the way he had to go and make up his own notes.

Nehpets

Unfortunately none of my teachers cared if we handed up anything an rarely gave tests.

Which is a shame, to be honest it would have been better with at least a weekly test in each subject

microbiek

the only subjects that you need a teacher for are maths and french the rest like geo physics applied maths engineering irish dont need any teachers! idont know haow may people hav taken up applied maths on their own and geo physics and enggineering are literally regurgitating notes or the book maybe you would need sum guidance in the structure of prjects in geo history or engineering but thats it overall i agree!! you could well get over 500 without any teacher


prehaps actually it would be easier rather than wasting your time like a whole class on whatever when you could cover it yourself in less time and it would stand to you for longer!!!

Seinas

for subjects like maths, you definetly need a teacher... but not for most of the others. I started business last september, entirely by myself, just me and my textbook... and judging by last's weeks exam, i may have easily pulled off a B

genericgoon

Yes but for people who dont do hours of research or whatever, the teachers lessons are incredibly important. Especially if one didnt do grinds. A good teacher can make concepts you might find difficult seem easier. You could if you had enough time figure it out on your own but having it explained to you in person can be beneficial.

cocoa

Feddd wrote:

Can't learn from a book in some subjects due to the immense load of BS added in. I.e. Oliver Murphy's maths and applied maths books(Think thats his name) and that blue economics book. Need a teacher to tell you what parts you can leave out and so on.

I can't speak for the other books but I know oliver murphy's "Fundamental Applied Mathematics" is more than sufficient to learn the subject. Both myself and JC used it (without a teacher of any sort, bar consulting with other students) over the past year and we are both expecting high marks tomorrow...

Writing your own notes is incredibly beneficial to the vast majority of people, regardless of how "good" the notes a teacher may hand out are. You write your own notes, because you know your own level of ability, you know which bits of knowledge you personally know already and can therefore leave out and you know which bits are alien to you and need particular emphasis.

I think teachers are widely unnecessary in the case of students who are entirely self motivated, excepting their role as measurers of progress and test setters, except in language subjects where the student is not already fluent. In such subjects, having someone talk to you properly and fluently on a frequent basis is highly beneficial. Anything else can be very effectively taught in a book.

D. Coughlan

I always just found it easier to sit back and just listen in class, I could remember a lot of things just by the teacher explaining it to me on the blackboard, except for maths where you just the need the ability to work away yourself. I used to find it very frustrating not being motivated enough to study at the weekends, but when I was back in the organised structure of school on Monday, i could concentrate much better and achive more academic productivity just by attending classes, this is why I stayed in school right up to June 1st

SamHamilton

One of the most important things teachers add to learning is what to learn and when. Most subjects could easily be self taught but it's just a case of knowing what to study, when to study it and how long to study it for. Not everyone can work this out themselves but...

Gangsta

Speaking from last year when I sat the leaving cert. I found most of my teachers completely useless and did the work on my own. This year pretty much nothing has changed except my chemistry teacher (I switched schools).

About 99% of the teachers I had were dull and uninterested themselves. How am I supposed to be bothered if they aren't?

sd123

i agree with jc with almost everything said. Except with biology, has to be almost impossible to teach yourself some hard parts like respiration and photosythesis and genetics. everything else is just rote learning which can be done from any book. Tec drawing would be pretty difficult to learn from a book to try to visualise 3D objects, saying that, we never used a book for Tec. taking that into account, jc is completely right. my maths teacher, for example, just basically let us go at our own pace with papers when we had the course finished. in this way, the A students excelled and the lower students were able to work at their own pace, which worked out well for all students

JC 2K3

Gangsta wrote:

About 99% of the teachers I had were dull and uninterested themselves. How am I supposed to be bothered if they aren't?

The fact your future depends on it?

eZe^

I think teachers can make a subject more interesting to the student, I personally thank my physics teacher for making me so interested in science and math. So to a certain extent I think teachers can be extremely helpful. And with things like hard math, when I first looked at calculus it just looked like random variables and signs around the place, and if I taught myself (without a teacher) calculus I doubt I would have truely understood the implications and reasoning of what I was actually doing.

carlowboy

eZe^ wrote:

I think teachers can make a subject more interesting to the student, I personally thank my physics teacher for making me so interested in science and math. So to a certain extent I think teachers can be extremely helpful. And with things like hard math, when I first looked at calculus it just looked like random variables and signs around the place, and if I thought myself (without a teacher) calculus I doubt I would have truely understood the implications and reasoning of what I was actually doing.

Gotta agree there. Feel exactly the same. 90% of what I learned in school for the LC was what I learned in class. I found it impossible to sit down and learn something. My way of studying was just practicing exam questions to keep me on my toes.

Feddd

*Anyone* who had Sean o brien for anything will agree that his enthusiasim really rubs off on all of his students.

Enemy Of Fate

I could quite happily have done without teachers for maths (**** teacher, learned everything from Less Stress More Success book), english (decent teacher, but focused far too much on Macbeth), history (good teacher, but everything can be done from the books), business (**** teacher, **** book, covered everything from LSMS) and LCVP (crap teacher, I just used the marking scheme for the projects).Were it not for the sheer lack of anything even REMOTELY ressembling a decent economics book (the book we used and the LSMS economics book are both HORRIBLY outdated.Specially the LSMS book.I mean it focuses on questions from the early 80's for **** sake!!!) it too would be easy to cover on your own (although my teacher was absolutely fantastic, and if I covered it on my own I probably wouldn't have done as well).

The only subject I did that actually required a teacher was german, because theres so many little nuances that you'd never pick up on/be able to properly use, just from reading them in a book (although the Ubung Mact Den Meister and the LSMS are both quite good).Still though a good teacher does help (eg economics, history) and a **** teacher who despises you can be overcome (eg maths,business).

cossyx

Our business teacher refused to teach us from Christmas on..we finished the course around then and everyday we used to do exam questions in class while she'd be on the laptop, she never checked them or gave us tests so basically we did nothing but talk, the other class however had a brill teacher who was so dedicated. He gave them a test everyweek, a pre-mock mock, a mock at easter and a mock the last week of school!! He took them for extra classes if he felt they needed it yet we were left with a teacher who wouldn't do her job and when we asked her for a test she asked us to define 4 things one of which was the marketing concept...We all just lost interest in learning the subject :mad: