Scott,
Great. A good back up plan is one that, when called into action, serves the instructor and students effectively and efficiently. Failure to plan is planning to fail, so back up plan limit those occassion when seemingly nothing is going as planned. So, off we go to plan-B.
Barry Westling
A backup plan is very important, especially when teaching technical subjects. Sometimes the example you have prepared is not enough. This is precisely why I always have two or three practical examples ready to go. If the students don't seem confident after the first exercise, I have two more at the ready.
Scott
Nicholas,
This sounds good. Something I do, checking for understanding, is moving forward with my lesson, then every few minutes, stopping, and asking specfic students to answer specfic questions about what I've just covered...sort of a two steps forward, one step back. If questions are on target I move on. If not, I review. This helps me not go too far without assuring students are tracking with me.
Barry Westling
As I have mentioned earlier, being prepared for class is of the utmost importance. Sometimes if students sre not engaged in a specific subject matter, I would ask them why?
I may then decide to take the class to the library and give them a brief assignment and come back to class with their work. If they seem to understand the work now,I can resort back to my original method.
Vicki,
You're welcome. Sorry to hear about your past bad experiences. Perhaps the only good thing is that these are now "past experiences", at least for you.
Barry Westling
I agree instructors need to be creative in gathering resources, but when the course objectives state "to perform daily QC" on chemical blood analyzer when there is no analyzer it is impossible to achieve that goal regardless of the creativity of the instructor. I definitely agree that some technical schools place profit over education. Several students commented that the "on hands training" was not what they expected when they enrolled and decided to leave the program. The institution is scheduled for accrediation in the near future. In the past I have been involved in other facilities preparing for the accrediation process. I do not think the stradegy of "just wing it" will be openly accepted by the accrediation team. Thank you for thoughts and you feedback was very helpful to support my personal educational teaching ethics and values.
Vicki,
If you are saying the course outline (or course description) specified certain lab activities using specific lab resources, but were intentionally not available, that seems to be quite unfair at the least, and possibly borders on fraud. As instructors we often have to "be creative" in getting our desired lab and demonstration resources gathered. But if these involve costlier equipment, supplies, or other specialized instrumentation, that is going too far. It's unfortunate that some schools place profits over instruction. Being thrifty is commendable, especially these days, but witholding essential materials seems a bit too much.
Barry Westling
If I completed planned lecture and activities for the class period, I always have addtional worksheets for reinforcement of subject area(like crosswords) or have handouts for next section to be covered, so the students can work ahead. Always better to be ahead than behind in delivering the course content.
Just food for thought:
What do think about a career school offering a "hands on laboratory" in which they have limited on NO resources to successfully achieve the corporate course objectives?
According to the school I was working(no longer due to this issue of misrepresentation)the educational guidelines for offereing a new course is to "shake through the course the first time to identify the key resources required" regardless of the course objectives. Is that an acceptable back up plan or totally unfair to the students who are expecting to use instumentation which does not exist???
My educational philosophy is based on a conceptual framework-PRIDE-Professionalism, Reflective,Innovative,Diverse and Effectiveness, so I had to resign based on my standards for teaching excellence. What are your thoughts???
