1. Think about the traditional skill or knowledge you taught in activity B1.5.

a. How did you originally learn that skill or knowledge?

b. How did you teach it in your lesson?

c. Were the two processes similar or different?

2. Think about any topic or skill connected with your own teaching subject.

a. How did you learn it?

b. Was the method similar or different to the way you learnt the traditional knowledge or skill?

As you do these activities try to make a list of different ways of learning.

Learning activities refer to activities which people are doing as they learn. Read the list below and decide which of these activities were most important in each of the learning processes you just described.

When people learn they may be:

1. Listening to a teacher. The teacher may be telling them facts about something, helping them to understand something, or describing how to do something.

2. Reading something the teacher has asked them to read, notes on the board; or something they themselves have chosen to read.

3. Writing something the teacher has asked them to write in the form of questions, or notes to help them to remember or understand what they have learnt. They are using their own words and should understand what they are writing.

4. Copying is a form of writing but the students are not making up the words themselves. They are copying the words of the teacher and may or may not understand what they are writing.

5. Talking: This may be answering a question asked by the teacher, asking the teacher a question, or talking to another student.

6. Discussing: this is also talking, but it is more open talk where a number of people talk to solve a problem, give an opinion or share ideas. The teacher may or may not be involved.

7. Watching the teacher or another student do something such as demonstrating a skill.

8. Imitating is watching someone do something and then trying to do what he or she does.

9. Calculating is any learning which involves using numbers or mathematics.

10. Doing some physical action such as cutting a piece of wood, sewing a piece of cloth, giving food to chickens or operating a machine.

11. Practicing is doing an action not for a particular purpose but simply to repeat it in order to learn it.

12. Thinking: we often learn a lot when we sit and think about what we have learnt or what activities we have done in the classroom.

a. Suggest what might be the two main activities involved in learning each of the following:

• How the digestive system of a cow works.

• How to operate a sewing machine.

• Deciding the best foods to give to young children in Solomon Islands.

• How to find out how much timber is needed to a make a certain sized table.

• The best way to plant pineapples.

• The names of the parts of an outboard motor.

b. There are many ways to learn these things. Compare your answers with

those of other students to decide which is the best or most effective way to

learn each of these.

c. Which 4 of these activities will be the most important in learning in RTCs? Why?

Watch some lessons at St. Dominic’s.

Make a list of the main learning activities used in the lessons.

What are the main learning activities useful for learning:

a. a skill;

b. knowledge or content?