Description of Activity: Promoting Kindness in Teaching
Content/Subject Area: Teaching; improving teaching methods
Type: Webinar + Short Course
Length: 70 minutes rounded to 1 hour
Level: Teachers/ Librarians who also teach
Organiser: OneHE
Presenter:
Format: 20 minutes lecture followed by short course.
My general intention is to improve my teaching skills. One of the aspects of my job that I enjoy the most is teaching, but I do not consider myself a naturally-gifted pedagogue. Anything that I can learn to improve my delivery, and the extent to which I can engage the whole class, is beneficial. Also, I strive to make my library, and my library service, a welcoming environment, in which everyone is greeted with patience and kindness. In general, the webinar and course reinforced that there is evidence that kindness can be utilised to engage students, motivate them to succeed, and help them achieve good results. A significant part of my job is teaching and helping students with referencing. Part of the frame-work of that teaching is a focus on plagiarism, and an expectation that students will cheat. Moving forward, I intend to focus on promoting the idea that referencing is one of the easiest aspects of academic writing, and it’s satisfying to get it right, and earn some easy marks, rather than focusing on penalties for plagiarism.
