An instructor must have the pulse of their classes and know who their audience is. We must be creative when delivering content to students to ensure that material is intersting even with the dry material.
Tiona,
You are welcome. Glad that you are gaining some additional strategies to use in your teaching. I wish you continued teaching success and rewarding student growth.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I really enjoyed this lesson. I'm going to take more time to evaluate what methods work best for which students. This will definitely make my lesson plans more diverse. Thanks!
Tammie,
I congratulate you on this approach. This is how instructors need to share their content and get their students invested in the learning process.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Keyonta,
Do have some examples you can share with us? Thanks.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Reanna,
I do to. I use a lot of case studies in my courses so the students can develop their critical thinking skills which leads to better problem solving. I agree about how students love to hear stories from the field and how the content being offered will be used when they are out working.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
The strategies in which I have implemented for making a course's content relevant and applicable to the learning needs of the students is to make sure I prepare myself before class. Knowing the attention span of students I come up with activities that not only keep their attention but at the same time make sure the are getting the information that is relevant and applicable to their learning.
I give real life experience.
I love implementing real life scenarios to related course material. The students love to hear about what you have actually come across in the real world. It intrigues them.
Shane,
I agree about the benefits of sharing real life experiences. These experiences are what reinforce the content being taught and increases the value of the course to the students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I make sure that relevant course content is applied in each class by using real life experience and relevant experiences. Real life experiences in my eyes are the key to a students success.
Jelitza,
You make a very good point about how certain classes lend themselves to certain learning preferences. By you seeing the big picture you are offering instruction in different learning venues so that all learning preferences are touched upon at one time or another in the course.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
It is difficult to plan instruction to accommodate the varied learning preferences. I stick to the general course outline when planning to make sure I meet the requirements that are necessary and relevant to my students passing their state licensing exams.
To accommodate to my students' learning preferences, I search for engaging, modern, and relevant activities, videos, problems, etc. Over the years, I have also learned (with the material that I teach) that it may not always be possible to address all learner preferences in one class, but it is definitely possible when planning for multiple classes.
During my first meeting with my students, I always plan a discussion, so that I have a reallistic understanding of how I can best enhance their understanding of the subject m,atter.
Given the choice, students will always express their opinions as to how they can the class to be delivered, and how they want to be evaluated. This is not to say that the instructor can accomodate every point de vue or scrap their strategies, but it always a positive thing to have students perspective. After all this is a student centered learning environment.
Sara,
Thank you for sharing this information with us because we can use the same approach in working with our adult students. We need to use all the resources we can identify to maximize the learning of our students and fellow students are one of those resources.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Kimberly,
Nice blend so that each student has an opportunity to use their learning preference to acquire the needed knowledge and skills.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
When I was teaching at the high school level, I learned very quickly that I could use the students to help dictate how the class was going to evolve. Some of my students could help and be information sharers. Others could come up with interactive methods to help their classmates along. I found that this was helpful in accomidating diffeent learning preferences in my classroom.
To accomodate students that learn better by listing the first part of our class is lecture, and for students that learn better by hands on, the second half of class is learned in lab where they get to do things on their own.
William,
Yes it does. Students need to see value in what they are being asked to learn. If they don't then they start to feel that their time is being wasted.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
