Hello Internet

This is a blog about things on my mind. I am an ordinary guy from Vaasa Finland and present a teacher @VAMK University of Applied Sciences. My motto is "Carpe Diem". I try to stay curious and learn new things every day. I actually started this blog a couple of years ago when I bought an iPad as my assistant (I could not do without it anymore), but I did not have the energy to keep it up. I made a new start in April 2016. I hope that there will be posting more often in the future :)

Professionally I am into ICT & Business and interested in new trends and I want to help companies to improve their Businesses through new innovations in Digitalization and IoT. I teach System Modeling (UML), Project Management and CRM and in between tutor students in working life Projects.
I teach in English and Finnish. I like to be international and write my blogs in English. This is also a great way to improve my English skills. A while ago I found out that Lean Thinking in Teaching is cool. There might be some postings on Lean in the future.
Feel free to read and comment.

You will find some background information on me om my Home Base: http://kennorr56.wix.com/homebase

Wednesday, 27 April 2016

TaaS - Teaching as a Service

Though I have been a teacher for many years, I have only lately started to question my own teaching methods. I have always put the student in the center and tried to be as fair as possible with the assessments and the course grades. I get good feedback and therefore I concidered myself as a good teacher. I know that students learn in different ways but I have not seen it as my task to meet all different styles. I have rather seen the students as a group and expected every student to adapt to my way of teaching. I have been telling myself that I have not been allocated enough resources to differentiate my teaching methods.
Is that really the case? Could I perhaps rethink my doings and get students to take ownership of their own learning in greater extent than right now? That might give me more time to figure out and offer alternative ways to learn. I am still struggling with that question.
BUT...
since I started thinking about teaching and learning in Lean terms, I started to see my reality with different eyes. From now on I concider every student as my customer. As a customer you have needs/goals and that is to learn and to graduate with good or exellent grades. That is my assumption. If a student is willing to try his/her very best and want to learn and succeed, then I should, as a teacher, be able to offer that possibility to him/her, not as a group, but as an individual.

May the rethinking process continue :)

  Student pictures from VAMK's application guide


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2 comments:

  1. MarMa5 May 2016 at 08:07

    Maybe, because my main is entrepreneurship, I have always highlight ownership of one's learning (and others) as clear. “When you argue for your limitations, all you get are your limitations.” ~ Wayne Dyer and maybe our role is to be those who say no to our students? “Be grateful to all those people who told you no. It’s because of them that you managed to do it all yourself.” ~Wayne Dyer

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    Replies
    1. Kenneth Norrgård5 May 2016 at 22:40

      Thanks for the comments. Good for you. I can't do other than agree with the quotations of Wayne Dyer.

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