Prof. Friedrich Karl Rothe (Prof. Emeritus, University of Education, Germany) is on four week visit to The Islamia University of Bahawalpur. The worthy professor has 35 years teaching experience at school and university level. The Faculty of Education is arranging a series of Lectures, Seminars, Ideas sharing and Discussion Sessions on educational issues. The second session of this series was held on April 15, 2008 at seminar room of the Faculty of Education. Prof. Rothe was the key note speaker. He shared his experiences on "Teaching Future Teachers". Prof. Dr. M.A.Adeeb, Dean Faculty of Education was also present on the occasion. Faculty members from Department of Education, Department of Educational Training and Department of Social Work and M.Phil/PhD scholars participated in the session.
Speaking on the occasion Prof. Rothe said that each society has its own needs and traditions. Teacher education programs of each society have their specific requirements. However we learn from other cultures and experiences of other nations of the world. These experiences help us to reframe and restructure teacher education programs to fulfill the objectives in an effective manner.
In this session Prof. Rothe explained how teacher training is conducted at University of Education, Germany. He shared his own experiences of school and university teaching. He involved the participants in various kinds of activities to give them the true concept of active teaching and learning. He said that we should be very careful in making judgments. Sometimes we claim that we know something but in reality we do not know. As a teacher we think that we know the behavior of students but actually we may not know. Our perceptions about students may not be true. He said that he has always tried to make the students think instead of memorizing the concepts. He has tried to create open atmosphere in the classroom and encouraged students to ask any question if they do not understand the concept. Teaching should be done in a manner which is close to reality.
Speaking on his experiences of university teaching, Prof. Rothe said that he involved his students in visualizing abstract ideas and things. He tries to know and understand students' own perspectives. He shows them movies to explain different concepts. He said that the level of the language of the teacher should be understandable to the students. Professors and prospective teachers should work together to design and implement lessons in the classroom. Teacher Educators should also teach for some period in schools to widen their perspective and to understand the complexities of actual classroom teaching. While assessing future teachers, only the test of memory is not sufficient. The real test of their knowledge is to present them educational problems and see how they analyze the situation and come up with practical suggestions to solve the problems.
In the end Prof. Dr.M.A.Adeeb thanked Prof. Rothe for sharing his valuable experiences. He also thanked the participants for their concentration and motivation. In the coming days Prof. Rothe will speak on 'How can we minimize Drop Out', Teaching Material and Self Production of Low Cost Teaching Material' and 'German Educational and Vocational System'