Reflections on ideas from Certificate in Tertiary Teaching course

My definition of the aim of this course is as follows:

To develop my teaching skills, especially as far as learning, teaching design and delivery is concerned.

My goals are:

•  To become a competent and inspiring teacher, so students and I can enjoy the teaching process (this sounds very earnest, doesn't it?)
• To learn how to ask the students good questions, i.e. questions which encourage the best learning possible
• Reflect on lessons, change method/content if they haven't worked or could be improved
• Learn how to carry out this assessment
• To get to the bottom of this 80:20 idea

The 80:20 rule

I asked Jane for help, because I couldn't find a definition of the 80:20 rule.

From: Anita Divers [mailto:Anita.Divers@manukau.ac.nz]
Sent: Sunday, 8 August 2010 12:22 a.m.
To: Jane.Terrell@manukau.ac.nz
Subject: 80:20 concept


Hi Jane,

Could you recommend some reading around the idea that teachers direct learning for 20% of time with students?

Thanks,

Anita


Hi Anita

Thanks for your question. The library staff and I spent a considerable amount of time following up on this question and came up with these meagre references:


Reference                                                                              Notes for use

80/20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle                       The origin of the “80/20 rule”


http://www.ielts.school.nz/ideas.htm                                     The only education-linked ref we've      
                                                                                                been able to find for the 80:20 rule

                        
Sue Roylance found some other articles which she sent to me – can’t locate them just now, but have copied Sue in to continue tis conversation if you wish!

And below are my own thoughts about this – before delivery of the course began..

Kind regards

Jane


“80:20 Rule” at MIT:

Origin of rule

This is a business model – see these quotes from wikipedia..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle


The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule,[1] the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.[2][3] Business management thinker Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; he developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas.[3] It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients."

80:20 and constructive alignment

Applied to education this is often taken to mean that effective teaching and learning activities comprise 80% student activity, 20% teacher activity.

This is consistent with the principles of constructive alignment as outlined in Biggs, J. & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for Quality Learning at University (3rd ed.). Berkshire, England: Open University Press:

Learning takes place through the active behaviour of the student: it is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does (Ralph W. Tyler, 1949, in Biggs and Tang 2007).

If students are to learn desired outcomes, then the teacher’s fundamental task is to get students to engage in learning activities that are likely to result in their achieving those outcomes… what the student does is actually more important in determining what is learned than what the teacher does (Thomas J. Shuell, 1986, in Biggs and Tang 2007).


So, I will be working by the following definition of the 80:20 rule, as explained above by Jane.

"effective teaching and learning activities comprise 80% student activity, 20% teacher activity"