"Innovations in Quality Teaching & learning"（优质教学中的创新）

　　　　　　　　 　任伯江 香港岭南学院教育科技中心主任

　　Quality management has been a"buzz word" since the inception of the concept in the days of W Ed wards Deming , Joseph H Juran, Philip Crosby and others between 1960’s and 1990’s. The term is particularly popular among academics in the tertiary education sector in recent years. The theory of quality management in an eclectic mixture of Western and Asian thoughts and ideas such as :(1) IBM’s "removing defects, leading to total customer satisfaction"，(2) Crosby’s "conformance to requirements" and "quality is achieved by prevention, not appraisal"，(3) Juran’s "Set goals for continuous improvement, give everyone training, communicate results " and (4) Yam’s "Quality requires positive attitude and team spirit, and thus quality teaching is the total involvement of the teacher and the student to the satisfaction of the learning outcomes on the part of the students".The list is inexhaustive. The concepts and ideas are important in providing an intellectual framework within which one may place the whole range of issues of their concern. In the case of teaching and learning educators are concerned with serving and assisting young people to develop their potentials and total personality.

　　In university education total quality management means stating its mission(s) or purpose(s) clearly and determining its own definition(s) of quality, standards and the academic audit unit. It has been asserted that quality management in the educational setting is "facilitating human relationship between lecturers and students in the teaching and learning process."

　　Teaching is a human interaction process aiming for a change of behaviour on the learners’ part. Both the teacher(learning facilitator)and the student (the respondent)have to communicate in order to effect learning and mutual understanding. Successful teaching communication implies facilitators being understood, experience being shared and a change of attitude/behaviour on the respondents’ part.

　　To study how teachers teach and how students learn is more important than to impart what teachers can prescribe for students. By the same token to motivate students to learn is more essential than to be concerned with how learned teachers are or how much knowledge they possess. An effective teachers should not only assume the role of a curriculum planner, designer, a course evaluator but should also possess a wide range of teaching skills, public speaking skills(communicating, performing,"selling")and listening skills. The skills would motivate tudents to participate more actively in the learning process, and thus enhancing teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes. Teaching is a total process of motivation interactivety management of learning, design and evaluation of instruction and communication of ideas, feeling, thoughts and attitudes.

　　There, however, does not exist a golden rule (stock method)in teaching and learning for all teaching situations. Different personalities and subject areas call for different approaches.

　　The same is true for innovations. Any definitions of the concept could only be descriptive rather than prescriptive. By doing something that has never been tried before or "making a new change" can earn one "innovative" label. It takes more for someone to be described as being "innovative" than the mere act of having made use of WWW in his/her teaching. The facilitator must prove he/she has put enough effort in the planning and designing of instructional materials : having evaluated the needs, interests, learning styles, individual differences and the learning outcome of the students. The concept of "learning" is inherent in the concept of "teaching" . The two is inseparable.

　　 It is our belief that no matter how sophisticated technology is, human endeavour in facilitating learning should be enacted. Careful planning, discreet preparation and systematic presentation dictate the success of using technology. It is our belief that innovations require creative imagination, critical thinking, and rethinking with profound involvement and dedication in the design of subject matter to serve our young people. It is our belief that quality feaching should go hand in hand with quality learning which help our young people to develop their full potentials in adapting themselves to our ever changing society. To conclude I would share with you a little verse on Teaching :

　　 " Teaching with love and care is a many splended thing, Enriching the development of our young as always in the spring; Active listening to their voices in their hearts so assertive and bold,Cherishing their minds of judgment and value they may hold；Helping the young hearts to tackle problems so fineInspiring, challenging and fruitful will their experience become so divine；Nourishing day after day their spirit so bright and wholesome，Growing more and more independent and confident to face the world will they become".

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