I actually enjoy incorporating my professional experiances, so that they know it is real and not just a class that i am teaching to then
i first try to learn from the student thier strengths and weaknesses, then if they have any learning disabilities, and then what type of learner are they. So that i can give them the best advantige to learn the subgect.
Hi Kim,
Thanks for sharing this reference to Bloom's Taxonomy. This is the core of curriculum development because we have to get our students to understand the basics before we can move them to higher order thinking. If we instructors understand the sequence it is much easier to plan our content from there.
Gary
Hi Dorothy,
I put students into groups to work on projects. By mixing the higher level and lower skilled students together in groups there is an exchange that takes place. They help each other on the common project while exchanging information and knowledge. The students like to work together on projects or cast studies so the motivation for group learning is high.
Gary
Hi Dorothy,
You are not alone in your fright. It was this way for all of us when we first started. Look at your course content and see how what you are teaching can be applied in everyday life. For example, you could have students develop resumes, do minute papers, write letters of application, etc. All of these activities revolve around their next step in life, that being getting employment. If they can develop their writing/communication skills their chances are greatly increase in terms of success. This helps to make it real for them.
Gary
I am already working with an ESL student on the weekends, but I hope volunteer more time for community group learning so as to feel more comfortable with and reflexive with students who truly want to learn.
I absolutely agree with your point, Barbara. Once relevancy is established, we all have that extra energy to understand and perform whatever task is at hand.
I love the look in a student's eyes when he/she has that, "oh, so now I know what I can do with that information - I know how that can work for me".
Thanks for the inormartion on Bloom's Taxonomy. I agree that this is a good approach. I am a clinical instructor and find students are at difference levels in regards to their technical skills. I usually regard each student as an individual and challenge them accordingly.
Marian U
Are you familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy? Bloom's breaks down instruction and assessment into different levels. The lower levels deal with more fundamental skills and information. The higher levels deal with more complex understand. Using Bloom's, you can develop materials and evaluations at different levels to offer students a variety of approaches to the information. Students who are not as confident will gain confidence through the lower level material and assessment, but you can still offer something to students who are more confident as well. There are many, many web sites that offer great explanations of this system.
I am also teaching two different classes with very different styles. One is very small and the students don't seem to have much confidence in their ability to complete the class I am teaching. The other is a much larger class and the students have a much wider range of confidence levels. The smaller class I don't have much problem with because I am able to go almost one-on-one with each student during class time and I think I've been able to help their confidence. But the larger class is a challenge. How do you deal with differing confidence levels within a large class?
I have been talking with students before and after classes in order to find out what they think about what we've been learning in class and the things they find most helpful.
I will be able to read their evaluations of my work soon, and I'm looking forward to that.
I've also had the dean of instructors in my class a couple of times and chatted with her afterward about things I could do to improve.
I am still feeling somewhat overwhelmed with trying to be an instructor. So far, my style has been to work through various chapters in the textbook with the students, going through the exercises with them and talking over the various skills and rules of language to make sure they understand. We do things as a class in regard to grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc., then work in small groups when we're actually dealing with writing and editing processes. But each class is still a learning experience for me and I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to help the students learn the things they need to know in order for them to be able to function better within the professional world they are aiming for. It's still scary!
I have been doing this for several rotations. Networking with all the various disciplines in the hospital establishes excellent rapport between staff, instructors, and students.The students are excited to work with the staff and the staff seem to enjoying teaching students newly acquired skills.
Mariann U
Hi Mariann,
I really like the way you show how patient care in interconnected. By observing this and talking with the different providers the students can start to see how what they are doing is related to total health care and that they need to work with others to provide for their patients.
Gary
Hi Abigail,
I like this strategy. You are targeting the learning needs of your students and providing the needed supports at key times. This is a great way to keep your students engaged in the learning process.
Gary
Thanks for the information ,I will refer to the site as needed.
Mariann U
Kolb did a number of studies on experiential learning styles. He basically came up with the concept that learners fall into one of four categories and learn better when instruction is given to meet the nedds of that category. Of course,nobody fits neatly into one category so Kolb developed a teaching stragey where, as an intructor, you teach around a circle of methods and, by so doing, reach all learning styles. that is a very short explanation, but the concepts can be very effective in teaching and developing curricla (sp?? curriculums?). A more detailed explanation can be found at http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm
I am not familiar with Kolb's Circle. Could you please explain.
Mariann U
I also beleive in self-reflection after teaching clinical. I network with staff people and hospital educators about the daily occurrences at the hospital, the good, the bad, and then different approaches tha t were used and can be used.
Mariann U
I also give many quizzes related to nursing medications and med math. I assign students various medications for them to look up and write questions about. I then create a quiz using the questions the students created. This seems to be a better approach for having student input and remembering information.
Mariann U
