Principles and Strategies of Teaching in Medical Laboratory Science

Midyear Term
SY 2024 – 2025

Topic 3: The Teachers

Prepared by: Guillerma L. Lim, RMT

Intended Learning Outcomes:

• Define Teachers
• Identify the qualities of an effective teacher
• Explain the roles and function of a teacher
• Examine the principles of good practice in education

The Teacher:

• One of the most influential and powerful forces for equity, access, and quality in
education
• Key to sustainable global development
• Selects and organizes teaching-learning methods
• Conscientiously plans and controls situations in order to achieve optimum
student learning

Qualities of an Effective Teacher:

1. Positive
o Keep students engaged in a positive attitude.

o Students are motivated by a desire to learn rather than just obtaining good
grades or a degree.
o Ideal, analytical, dutiful, competent, expert, reflective, diversity responsive,
and respected.
o Stays focused.
o Finds ways to make students see what is interesting about the subject.

2. Prepared
o Knows the course materials.

o Reviews concepts and ideas to make them clear.

o Thinks of ways on how to deliver the content more efficiently presented.

3. Organized
o Exemplifies key points and essential contents.

o Chooses the most significant concepts and shows how they relate to each
other.
o Explains concepts.
o Keeps long-term goals in mind.

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4. Clear
o Explains complex ideas in a simpler way.
o Helps students understand and use new technologies.
o Efficiently and effectively illustrates ideas (e.g., use of maps, graphs,
drawings, and slides).

5. Active
o Keeps students thinking.

o Lectures are an efficient way of imparting information; enhance it with

activities.

6. Patient
o Gives students time to process knowledge and answer questions about it.

o Knows that it is acceptable for students to commit mistakes if they can

learn from them.
o Recognizes that learning can be hard work, even for most motivated
students.

7. Fair
o Sets out clear expectations, enforces them regularly, and admits if
students do things right.
o Outlines clear policies both for assignments and examinations.
o Applies standards equally and consistently always (ALL THE TIME!!!).

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 Roles and Functions of a Teacher

Roles of a Teacher:

A. Instructional Role
* Plans and organizes course(s).
* Creates and maintains a desirable group that encourages, enhances
learning, and leads to the development of learner self-discipline.
* Adapts teaching and prepares instructional materials to varying interests,
needs, and abilities of students.
* Motivates students to pursue and sustain learning activities that will lead
them to acceptance of responsibilities for their own learning.
* Teaching consists of complex roles:
* Supplying information needed
* Explaining, interpreting, and clarifying
* Demonstrating or explaining a procedure
* Serving as a resource person for group projects or to individual students
* Supporting student performance in the classroom, laboratory, and any
other setting
* Evaluating all the planned learning and teaching activities and student
outcomes

B. Faculty Role
* This role varies according to philosophy, objectives, and setting of the
teaching institution.
* Chairperson, secretary, or members of one or more committees.
* Counselor of students in matters related to teaching and learning.
* Researcher.
* Resource person for groups outside the institution, health agency, or
other schools.

C. Individual Role
* Plays a personal role as a member of a family, a community, or as a
citizen.
* Dignified and distinct personality.

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In 2000, Harden and Crossby identified 12 roles of a teacher, grouped into 6 categories:
• Teacher as information provider: in the lecture and in the clinical context.
• Teacher as a role model: on the job and in more formal teaching settings.
• Teacher as a facilitator: as a mentor and learning facilitator.
• Teacher as assessor: student assessor and curriculum evaluator.
• Teacher as planner: curriculum and course planner.
• Teacher as a resource developer: resource material creator and study guide
producer.
• Both content expertise knowledge and educational expertise are addressed in
these roles.

Functions of a Teacher:

1. Explaining and informing

o Well informed in the area being taught.

o Communicates information needed for background, enhancement, and

motivation.
o Explains the relationship with students on a number of occasions.

2. Initiating, directing, and administering

o One of the most important teaching functions is to initiate, to organize, to

direct, and to make decisions.

o In the 24 hours of the day, the teacher faces and deals with many
problems that require initiative, direction, and administration.

3. Unifying the group

o In the class, the educator has to unify all students with varying

personalities to perform the assigned task as one, and they become

united as they work together promoting a spirit of unity among the team.

4. Giving security
o Many students need warm recognition, praise, and a friendly atmosphere.

o There are students who feel loneliness, isolation, rejection, and economic
insecurity.
o The teacher should therefore identify the needs of the student.

5. Clarifying attitudes, beliefs, and problems

o A lot of students are disturbed by social influences (e.g., TV, radio, films,

and reading materials) bringing new and unusual ideas.

o Teacher should therefore classify doubts and create opportunities for
students to express their attitudes, interests, and problems, and be able to
discuss their aims, interests, and aspirations.

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6. Diagnosing Learning Problems
o For students who do not make expected progress in their studies, growth,

and development, the teacher must analyze the learning problems of

every individual student and should recommend possible solutions.
o This is an important responsibility.

7. Making curriculum materials

o Curriculum plays an important role in the system.

8. Evaluating, recording, and reporting

o Teacher should assess progress of the class as a whole and the individual

student through assessment and periodic evaluations.

o She has to report the student's progress to her supervisor as well as to the
family.

9. Arranging and organizing classroom

o Important responsibility of the teacher to make the classroom a better

place to learn.
o Arrangements are to be flexible so that they can be changed to suit
different occasions.

10. Participating in the school activities

o In addition to the daily teaching task, the teacher is expected to engage in

other school activities (e.g., picnics, sports, organizing of some events).

11. Participating in Professional Life

o Every teacher is expected to cater to professional life in its entirety.

o To make a contribution to the improvement of the profession.

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Principles of Good Practice in Education:
There are seven principles of good practice in Education:

1. Encourage contact between the students and the faculty

o Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of the classroom is the most

vital factor in student motivation and involvement.

o Faculty concern makes students get through hard times and keeps them
working (e.g., seminars on important subjects by senior faculty, creating
early connections between student and faculty).

2. Develop reciprocity and cooperation among students

o Learning is improved when it is a team effort rather than individual.

o Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive
and isolated.
o Working with others often increases participation in learning.
o Sharing own ideas with others and responding to questions from others
sharpens thinking and deepens understanding (e.g., learning groups are
common practices, peer tutors help students who need special help).

3. Encourage active Learning Techniques

o Learning is not a spectator’s sport—students do not learn much by sitting

in class and listening to teachers.

o Memorizing pre-packaged assignments and spitting out answers is not
active learning.
o Students are encouraged to talk about what they are learning, write about
it, relate it to their past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives (e.g.,
active learning encouraged for classes using structured exercises,
challenging discussions, team projects, and peer review. Students can
help design and teach courses. In some universities, faculty and students
design new courses on contemporary issues and universal themes.
Students help the professors as teaching assistants).

4. Give Prompt Feedback

o Understanding what you know and what you do not know focuses on

learning in order to benefit from the courses.

o Students use appropriate feedback on performance.
o Students need guidance in evaluating existing knowledge before starting
classes.
o Some universities give special lessons to students with poor academic
performance or readiness as evaluated.

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 o These special lessons are meant to train these students for introductory
courses. These students are advised to take introductory courses given
the level of their academic skills.

5. Emphasizing Time on Task

o Time + Energy = learning.

o There is no substitute for time on duty.

o Understanding how to use one's time well is vital to students and
professionals alike.
o Students need guidance and help in the learning of effective time
management.
o Allocating a fair amount of time ensures effective training for students and
effective teaching for the faculty.
o How institutions define true expectations for students, faculty,
administrators, and other professional staff can provide a basis for high
performance for all (e.g., mastery learning, contact learning, computer-
assisted teaching requires students to spend a sufficient amount of time
studying, extended periods of training for schools will give students more
time on the job).

6. Communicate High Expectations

o Expect more and one gets more.

o Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for

educators and organizers when high expectations of themselves are
required and concern makes extra effort.
o For example, in many colleges and universities students with weak past
records in tests do exceptional jobs.

7. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning

o There are different ways to learning; people bring different talents and

learning styles to school.

o Students who may be doing very good in hands-on may not be doing well
with theory.
o Students need an opportunity to show their talents and learn how to work
for them (e.g., individual degree programs recognize different interests,
personalized system of instructions, and mastery learning lets students
work at their own pace).

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