Teaching For Learning: Towards Pedagogical Paradigm Shift in the Implementation of Polytechnic Curriculum in Nigeria

The objective of teaching is learning. Teaching cannot be said to be successful without effective learning. The academic achievement got from the higher institutions these days depicts that teaching is going on without much learning. That is why students that graduate with distinction or first class from our institutions of higher learning are few and far between. A student that recently graduated with 5.00 GPA became instant news. But this should be the rule rather than the exception. More students should graduate with distinction and upper credit grades than lower credit and pass. Something should be done to tilt students’ marks distribution towards the positive skew. and this is the objective of the Integrated Lecture Approach (ILA) being proposed in this paper. It advocates for the practice of teaching for learning (TFL) as opposed to the popular practice of teaching and learning (TAL) that goes on in our institutions. In TAL, teaching is considered as the responsibility of the lecturer while learning is the sole responsibility of the students but TFL makes it the responsibility of the teacher not just to teach effectively but to also ensure that the students learn effectively. This is what the ILA is about. This paper seeks to make a case for the integration of the following responsibilities into the lecturers’ schedule: variation of teaching methods, motivation of students, inculcation of success mindset and time management practices, providing guardianship to students, and close monitoring of students’ study reading practices. Even after classroom interactions with students, lecturers should exert some form of control influence on the students in the specified areas.