17th March 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
We’ve already written an article about setting lesson goals; why tutors set them, and how they help students. Goal setting is also a crucial part of teaching guidelines. However, even once a tutor has become good at setting specific measurable goals, there may still be an important part missing for the student, and that part is context.
The context of a lesson is what drives a student, often it’s what makes them interested and is the reason they happy to do the lesson in the first place. This idea has been lost in much of academia though; students generally consider the point of a lesson to be ‘so I can pass the exams’, which is a constructed context, and can lead to students feeling disheartened as they see no reason for what they are doing.
The funny thing is that a context for teaching is always given outside of academia. People just don’t go on courses for the sake of it, there’s always a reason, something that the course with help with in that person’s life. Whether it’s practical training, or discussion of ideas, people want to learn because they’re interested in the applications of what they learn.
Of course, the context of a lesson can be ‘this is a fun challenge, with no real application’, and if the student still wants to be taught then that’s fine. What tutors have to realise is that students want that choice. What can happen is that a student blindly follows a tutor and continues with the lesson, despite not wanting the benefit that the lesson will give.
Tutors must state the context of a lesson. Students will happily continue with a lesson if they think it is going to help their exam result, and so help the university they get into, and the eventual job they get, but it’s also helpful to explain why a particular topic is part of what’s being studied. If a tutor can excite their student about the possible applications of a lesson then the student will be much more driven when trying to learn.