Teacher as a Facilitator

By: Prem Prasad Sigdel

Teaching philosophy or method has been changing time and again or it has taken different shape these days since long. It has come to the student centered method from the teacher method which was practiced in the past. The need and interest of the students have come to the first priority despite the one way traffic that has been changed drastically these days.

The lecture method of teaching has its own benefit such as the number of student should be more in comparison to the teacher. Or only one teacher should handle more than 50 students in the classroom. Nowadays teacher and student ratio has been 1:25 which is fit more as my teaching experience has assured me.

The ratio of student and teacher determines the quality that the teacher can ensure in the classroom. If we have less number of students in classroom, the teacher can be psychologically fit to handle all the students. S/he would have known the name of all the students. If we could call students by their name and point out their positive and negative points time and again, the students would be attentive in classroom.

Considering the fact that, I have been working as a facilitator in the classroom. I never tell the answer of any question in the classroom unless the students have asked me at prior. If the class is going on and the problem would arise, I ask all the students to try for the answer. Rather I have given them the clue so that they would answer the question themselves. If they have found some similar answer, I encourage them to find out the right answer with more clues.

In this way, the student would be able to find out the answer in classroom. We don’t have such system to let the students free. Rather I would encourage all the students to answer all the questions themselves. For that I have applied one of the methods. If the students have multiple answers, I have given them the chance to share their answer turnwise. The students would be encouraged to answer the questions in this process. If some of the students need more encouragement, I also give them clapping in the classroom from their friends.

Moreover, I encourage students to do homework anyway though they say that they don’t know the answer. I ask them to write answer what they have known. If the answer is good, that is best. If the answer is bad or wrong, I would ask any other student to share their answer in the classroom. If the answer is good, I ask all the students to write the same answer. If it is wrong only, I would assist them at last.

In this way the role teacher should be the facilitator in these days. If we can play the role of facilitator, the students have no complain and the classroom can be interesting all the time. If the teacher doesn’t do labor and just ask the students to do themselves, the class would be boring or the students would get nothing.