- By Demola Atobaba, Ado-Ekiti
It was commendations galore as over 250 academic staff of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), announced to have benefitted from the maiden edition of the staff training initiative of the amiable Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Abayomi Sunday Fasina recently. This was just as the excited lecturers expressed appreciation to the VC for approving the workshop as organized by the University’s Directorate of Integrated Services and Training, under the headship of Mr. Olanrewaju Patrick Ogunjobi, with a view to optimize lecturers’ productivity and best practices by imbibing pedagogical principles.
According to Mr. Olanrewaju Patrick Ogunjobi, who is Acting Director, Directorate of Integrated Services and Training, “the training is geared towards Optimizing Productivity and Best Practices Among University Teachers”, and will be a continuous excercise. The maiden edition, themed: ‘ Pedagogical Principles’ , has catered for 250 lecturers drawn from all the faculties of the institution while subsequent editions will cater for other batches of the academic staff.
Addressing the lecturers at the opening session of the training, Ogunjobi said: “The Workshop is designed for the Academic staff of our prestigious, fast growing University. We hearthly congratulate the Vice-Chancellor for the feat of always having something new to do at any point in time, since his assumption of office as our Vice-Chancellor.
“Today, our University is ranked amongst the fastest growing and sought-after University in Nigeria. This feat has been made possible because of the VC’s indefatigable leadership and sense of vision and mission. He came in well prepared, without any doubt as to what he wants, and the level he wants the University to be, by the time he will be leaving office.
“To really make FUOYE a University to beat; and a University with an eye to the future, he has embarked on so many infrastructural development projects, but the area that concerns our interest more, is his strides in Human Capital Development, involving Training and retraining of staff, to engender Higher Productivity.
“It has been proven beyond any shadow of doubt that regular staff training and retraining increases productivity and increases staff efficiency at work while using less capital and preventing staff layoffs. As a first priority in improving the lot of the Academic staff, the Management, under Prof. Fasina’s leadership, came up with the initiatives of ensuring that FUOYE Teachers start focusing on publications in Scopus-indexed journals (Elsevier,Thomas Reuter, and Scimango Journals), which are considered as very illustrious and prestigious, and a major factor in University rankings throughout the world.
“This initiative is of great benefits, particularly in the areas of visibility, access to grants, high frequency of wider audience, quality of manuscripts, etc. In other to give teeth to this initiative, the University Management has insisted on certain high impact factor; certain journals like SCOPUS, ISI, ISS, SCIMAGO, MLA, which are being recommended, and with our new Condition of Service in place, it has become imperative for our academic staff to explore these options, to raise the university’s standing and expedite promotions.
“Having entrenched the culture of publishing in High Impact Factor journals, the Vice-Chancellor considers it important and imperative to look at the Teaching Character of his Teachers, not only to improve themselves alone, but to also improve the outcomes of their teachings and the impacts on the students, who are the end results of their vocations, hence the Pedagogical Training workshop we are organizing for today and tomorrow”
“Effective pedagogy involves understanding each student’s unique needs and learning styles and tailoring instructions accordingly. It also involves creating opportunities for active learning, such as group discussions, hands-on activities, and problem-solving exercises. It is the art and science of teaching, and it encompasses a broad range of strategies and techniques aimed at facilitating learning. At its core, pedagogy is about creating an environment that fosters curiosity, engagement, and growth. With the right teaching skills, we can create an environment where our students can thrive and fulfill their potential.
“When we are equipped with everything we need to make our classes engaging, productive, and fun for our students, our classes won’t be bored, and our students will perform outstanding feats and be able to compete well in this highly competitive world we have found ourselves today.
“For this Training programme, involving two Hundred and fifty Academic staff, drawn from all the Faculties, and accress all Departments, and which I see as a LIFE SKILLED TRAINING WORKSHOP, we have selected very outstanding Professors of Educational Management; those who have proven themselves very well in the subject matter, to come and rub minds with us. Our Vice- Chancellor is very passionate about this and I would implore that we all accord the workshop the seriousness it requires. Yes, not every academic staff is covered in this Training Workshop, but we want to assure that the softcopies of papers delivered will be made available to every academic staff, while another set of academic staff are considered in subsequent edition’. he said
While declaring the event open, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Fasina said he approved of the training so as to: “…improve some of our colleagues’ skills in teaching for us to optimize and get the best from our lecturers
“Many of us are very brilliant and have had first class in the University but still cannot teach well, this is why this training is needed”.
“We need to get more training from those who are real teachers. We will be having series of these kind of training as long as we are here. I have heard a students who said that his lecturer is brilliant but doesn’t know how to teach.
We may also be bringing an idea where students would assess their lecturers’ way of teaching. We enjoin professors of this University to ensure that they produce more Post Graduate products because this is the essence of having professors in the system. The facilitators have been carefully selected to cater for our needs and the topics have also been selected for same purposes.”
The two-day training featured engaging lectures delivered by facilitators of professorial cadre in their respective fields in the academia. They included Prof. Kunle Adegun, Provost, College of Education, Bamidele Olumilua University, Ikere, Prof. T.K Akinwamide of the faculty of Education, Ekiti State University Ado-Ekiti, (EKSU), Prof. Ekundayo Haastrup of the faculty of Education, (EKSU) and Prof. Afolabi Popoola.
Delivering his lecture on “Method of Teaching Skills/Elenents of Effective Training”, Prof. Adegun took the lecturers through several methods of imparting knowledge, harping on the need to ensure students apply knowledge they gained from lectures apart from understanding it. He also emphasized on the need to keep the lectures brief, allow students to ask questions, answer such questions to please them, move among students during lectures in order to enable robust attention from them, allow students to be creative, discuss and interact on the topics of lectures so as to learn from others’ perspectives, encourage students to deploy internet facilities for learning and be more concerned about students’ welll-being by building reasonable relationships with them among other pedagogical attitudes.
Prof. Akinwamide who taught on: “ Enchancing Retention in Teaching and Learning”, gave insightful tips on how lecturers could ensure that students retain what they learn in class. He harped on the need for lecturers to build the interest of students in learning the topics by letting them know the benefits of gaining knowledge such as career opportunities involved, counseling the students, associating the topics with true life experiences, occurrences, and endeavors and others.
He also gave pedagogical strategies that enhance retention which according to him, included fishbowl strategy, Think-Pair-Share, Exit Slip, Pause-Procedure, self-study and lesson study, which are concepts he explained with examples.
While engaging the lecturers on: “ Social Interaction in Teaching and Learning”, Prof. Haastrup, who generously distributed printed copies of his insightful lecture notes to participants, harped on the need for proper and reasonable social interaction with students as sine qua non to getting the best in improving on learning capacities of the students.
Corroborating Prof. Adegun’s ideas on ensuring participatory learning in class, he said: “positive relationship management between teachers and students is pedagogical principle that has the ability to motivate students towards learning. The more students interact with one another, the more they learn from the process.social interaction is essential for education as it helps the students to learn, retain and apply…teachers, like students can effectively improve on their learning skills by frequently discussing the dynamics of their classroom with peers experiencing the same challenges…”
Prof. Popoola rounded up the pedagogical teachings by highlighting the ethical and legal issues involved in ensuring the best practices in teaching for the lecturers on his topic: “ Ethical Issues, Legal challenges and Beat practices among University Teachers”.
Beneficiaries of the workshop who told the University media team that they have gained a lot from the teachings, expressed gratitude to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Fasina and his amiable management team.
Mrs. Iyabode Ajisafe of the Department of Linguistics and Languages, said: “This is a laudable initiative that is very much needed for the Lecturers at this time. The things we have learnt will enable us to tackle some challenges we now have with our students and ensure best practices among lecturers.
Speaking in the same vein, Prof. Femi Abifarin, Dean of the Faculty of Law, eulogized the VC and his management team for bringing up the initiative, saying :”The facilitators have given very helpful tips on imparting knowledge and managing our students and l am very sure our colleagues have gained so much fron this workshop. We warmly appreciate our management team and the amiable vice-Chancellor.”
