Review of recommended reading: Teachers & Maori/Pacific students; Constructive Alignment

Hawk, K., Cowley E., Hill, J. & Sutherland, S. (2002). The importance of the teacher/student relationship for Maori and Pasifika students, SET, 44-49

Main theme is the huge importance of the relationship between the teacher & Maori and Pacific students, in low decile schools.

Ethnicity of teacher not important, but the type of person they were, e.g. values, attitudes, skills. Needed to have sympathy towards Maori/Pacific culture, however.
The following attributes promoted a good relationship with students: teachers who took care over pronouncing names, made an effort to learn about a student's world, were caring, showed mutual respect, went the extra mile to promote learning, shared something of themselves, showed enthusiasm, patience and showed belief in a student's ability.
Students needed teachers to model the behaviour they wanted from their students, and were very observant of teachers' body language.

Teachers who set clear goals and had high expectations of their students tended to find that students would achieve them.

This study leads to further questions, e.g. how can teachers be enabled to develop effective relationships with their students, and what should happen if they don't. More research needs to be done.

I enjoyed reading this article, and it is very relevant to our students at MIT. It has helped me to develop better relationships with my students and will be a good basis for continuing to achieve effective relationships in the future.

Biggs, J., Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. McGraw-Hill, UK.

This book proposes the theory of constructive alignment and outcomes based learning. This is a model for good teaching and assessment.

With universities increasingly being funded by student fees, they have had to improve quality of teaching. To do this, many are using constructive alignment.

In constructive alignment, the teaching/learning tasks and the assessment tasks are aligned to the intended learning outcomes, according to the "learning activities" required in the outcomes.

I must confess that I have only read the first chapter of this book, but I agree with what it says so far. It is a difficult read, however.

Constructive alignment seems to be exactly what we are doing to assess clinical skills in our nursing programme.