Category Archives: 4. Learning & Teaching Project (Learning)

The first “season” of Learning & Teaching Project took part in Spring 2009 during the FYSE1265 Learning about Learning class.

For a complete index of all episodes click on the “Learning & Teaching Project – Season 1” located on the left hand side.

Summary

2009/04/01

Field Journal Summary

Well, firstly to mention, nothing goes as planned. Originally, we hoped to bake far more things in our 4 sessions than we ended up with. We did not bake brownies and scones but cookies, muffins, cupcakes and an apple pie are all great achievements of our project.

In this final summary, I will use short descriptions and key words of my findings because:

-K.I.S.S.: Keep it short and simple (or Keep it simple stupid) rather than verbose.

-time management: Punctuality is crucial, and under estimation of time allocation will almost always occur. Plan accordingly.

-organization: Setting up a fixed meeting time and a structure for a lesson should always take place in advance.

-flexibility: Improvisation is important and often necessary in both planning (finding dates in busy schedules) and executing (alternating recipes).

-recipes: Recipes are useful guides which should be followed for a reason but not copied verbatim.

-scale: All the numbers given have relations to other measuring units. Furthermore, as with simple math multiplication, they can be scaled to obtain a desired amount of savouries.

-approach: In order to create a desired positive environment, both a teacher and a learner should be eager and enthusiastic about what they are doing.

-attitude: Attitude should definitely be positive and relaxed, preferably with an adequate sense of humour.

-active interaction: Teaching and learning of baking is double sided process where both parties have to be equally involved.

-variability: Instructions can be all verbal (orders), visual (examples) and written (recipes). Both a teacher and a learner are actively involved in all of them: verbal – presenting & listening, visual – showing & repeating, written – guiding & understanding. Alternatively, a student can learn by pure observation in certain cases. Doing is, however, always more welcome than lecturing.

-supervision: Learner’s freedom to bake and teacher’s degree of help define the rate of progress. More pupil’s independency usually means a higher challenge and therefore stronger experience.

-analogy: It is often beneficial to find a real life example which helps to comprehend the nature of baking better. For example, the consistency of dough compared to a snow ball does that job.

-debriefing: Final sum up of a lesson helps to realize different points of view and get a feedback.

-vocabulary: In European and Northern American baking terminologies, there are significant differences that should not be ignored if one wants to keep baking at both places.

-health: Never forget this aspect of baking whenever you work with eatables.

-hygiene: Even if they do not like to, they have to wash their hands and clean the dishes, hah!

Overall, I noticed that there is not a thick line in between roles of a teacher and a student in baking. Yes, an instructor is usually the more experienced one, but both parties bake together in one. As a student, I learned to pay attention, listen, observe, reproduce, read structured plans, solve unexpected events and -finally- bake like an American!

Lastly to mention, I am glad I was an active part of this project. I am going to continue baking and I would repeat this project again, maybe from the facilitating point of view. Who knows…

Episode 4

2009/03/23

Field Journal Entry #4 – apple pie

Today is the Monday of the Spring Break. This is the first journal entry that I am writing with a few days delay. Unfortunately, I managed to dislocate my right shoulder later and so I was not able to type. What is more, I could not bake too. Hannah and I could have rescheduled our Thursday session for later after the break; but we decided to keep it as planned and adapt to circumstances for once again. My hand was in a sling. Therefore, my role was to watch and learn by seeing. If you remember my plan, that was actually the original idea, which never happened, for the first session.

We were baking the apple pie this time. Although I did not literally put a hand to our work, I put a hand in fact. Hannah brought a recipe and pretended not to know. I read through it and instructed Hannah to make proper apple dough which she added to a crust prepared in advance. Hannah made it beforehand because it is necessary to chill the crust for at least 30 minutes. I, however, learned how to make it anyways because we went through its recipe too. I discovered a real life analogy with snow balls in a part where it instructed us to test the constituency by squeezing a small amount together. If it is too humid, water squeezes out; if it is too dry, it does not stick together.

As far as the apple dough was concerned, I learned many other important practicalities. For example, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cloves are usually referred to spices; the juice out of one fresh lemon can be substitute by 4 table spoons of lemon juice; and it is possible to skip the final part of brushing the top a pie with beaten egg since it only adds on extra yellow colour and glossiness.

The pie came out really neat. I have to say, however, that I expected something more solid, something one could grab. But nobody objected the final look of the pie as the traditional American pie is supposed to be quite wobbly indeed. It was only my European image of cakes in general that made me worried.

Frankly, I was surprised how much I can learn just by observing. Also, the different perspective of trying to instruct instead of following instructions helped a lot to understand baking better. Moreover, I did not have to tire myself by mixing all different kinds of ingredients into dough and I still got a piece to eat. And lastly, probably the best, it was the first time I did not have to wash the dishes!