Sunyani, Jan. 14, GNA-The University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) has ended a training workshop to equip its teaching staff with innovative teaching methods and assessment practices in higher education.
Organised under the auspices of the Centre for Professional Development (CePDev)-UENR, with support of the Academic Affairs and Quality Assurance and Planning Offices in Sunyani, the three-day programme was attended by close to 200 participants who were taken through topics which included “Aligning Course Content”, “Teaching Strategies and Assessment in Higher Education”.
Others were “Preparing Course Outlines”, “Objective Test Skills to Develop Good Multiple-Choice Questions”, “Constructing Essay Tests” and “Preparing Marking Schemes”.
A facilitator, Dr. Godwin Kwame Aboagye, a Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Centre for Teaching Support at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) said in ensuring effective, innovative methods “teachers must come out with a good outline because it is based on the course outline that the alignment will manifest.
“Previously teaching was teacher-centred primarily, but with the emerging trends, more student-centred approaches are being introduced in the classroom and teachers are not supposed to do much.
“The students should do more of the work because they require the knowledge, thus, the role of the teacher will then change from being a giver of knowledge to a facilitator and assistant in the teaching and learning process”, Dr. Aboagye added.
He said classroom must become more discussion-oriented instead of lecture-based, indicating that teachers must craft activities in advance to engage students in the teaching and learning process.
Consequently, Dr. Aboagye stressed “Teachers must be more advanced in their preparations before the lessons, so that the students will be more engaged than the teacher during lessons.
“By so doing, productivity, creativity and problem-solving would be enhanced”, he added.
In an interview at the close of the programme, Dr. (Mrs) Mercy Derkyi, the Acting Director, CePDev-UENR told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) the Centre in partnership with the Human Resource Division and other related offices would be organising series of such training for both teaching and non-teaching staff of the University.
In another interview, a participant, Dr. Gifty Serwaah Mensah, a Research Fellow with the Regional Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability of the University also said the training had enlightened her about how to set questions to enable students to think critically before coming out with solutions.
Participants were given certificates of participation.
GNA