Hi Franz!
Something that I find very useful for my personal learning is getting a new textbook. There are many opportunities for learning new facts as well as recemmendations for research. Students and colleagues provide great opportunities for learning as well. Can you think of other ways of learning?
Good work!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
I have found that talking with other faculty members can be VERY helpful when I'm looking for new ways to present material. My colleagues have excellent suggestions for using unique material from outside the classroom to facilitate learning.
The only training I received in my field was on-the-job training, so I also think back to when I was trying to learn this material. While I read journal articles about new findings in my field, I consider how my students could use that material on-the-job, and present material based on real-world situations.
provide interaction with the group of students and myself to learn new techniques they may bring to class
Greetings Caren!
I definitely like your approach. If the students are learning, the instructor should be learning as well. Instructors are staying current either through their own research or through students assignements/activities.
Keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED107 Facilitator
I constantly look for ways to update my skills by eating out, staying current with food trends, and encouraging my students to share their bits of knowledge that make their cooking authentic.
I make an effort to talk to leaders in the workforce my students will be entering and using this professional development for discussion and examples. I also frequently find my learners know quite a lot about random ideas and techniques I discuss in the classroom. In small group presentation activities we (myself included) learn more about the task at hand.
The beauty of the class I teach is that there are so many ways of executing the tasks of the day so I can encourage the students to bring their prior knowledge to the class. This allows them to teach each other (and sometimes me). But it also allows me to guide them in the learning process. Assigning projects that facilitate independent learning also allows me to learn new information. Staying current on trends in the business and encouraging the students to do so as well helps. And like Mike observing different styles of teaching and asking questions keeps me open to all learning processes.
Classroom time is static, it pretty much won't change and if you have a good lesson plan- it is good to go. But every good lesson plan has some flex in it to adjust to the needs of the classroom or for extended parts that may take longer that other depending on the dynamics of the class. You learn new ways as you adjust to meeting that change in dynamic.
I think every teacher needs to spend some time in observation- not necessarily a whole class but observing differenent methods. You can often get this with in house conversation among peers but actually seeing how the different method is used and seeing the results allows you to take what you see- adjust to meet you own style and then implement. We become a bit overly stagnant in believing we need not change or adjust. The fact that students don't respond or post course surveys (or other forms) show that we have flaws in our methods. We don't have to fix what is not broken but we do have to respond to changes and changing times. The balance is in successful results in course evaluations and positive feedback from students. In some areas it can be seen on how they progress to the next stage of a curriculum. If you stay on top of it- you need not change alot, but may often find you are changing back to some previous method.
Achievable goals is a necessity no matter what. TO the point of not putting much pressure on yourself- that should be a YES and NO. No to the point that you think you will change the world and fix every problem, but yes because as teachers we tend to get 'comfortable' and sometimes satisfied with our performance and keeping the pressure on ourselves makes us want to improve. THe input of other teachers or even to observe others adds ways we can avoid complacency
This is good- but at the same time, part of how we address our strategies is the 'signature' we leave on the course and the students- the students connect with teachers and styles and not everyone is 'successful' with a particularly 'good' method- stay with your strengths but don't be locked into your methods.
I think part of it is not 'seperating' teaching and learning. You learn new thinks as you instruct because the dynamics oand demographics of the class are always different and provide different responses- learning how to address the resposnses rather than adapting new material is the growing experience of the instructor
There are some topics that don't seem to change very much in terms of content. Books are updated and some information changes but it seems basic content remains about the same. The real areas needing a lot of time are teaching methods and how to budget time appropriately. Every new class presents new challenges and delivery methods change and keeping a classroom vibrant requires weekly attention.
I pull facilitators together to discuss strategies on a weekly basis. We share resources and best practices.
This saves time and lets facilitators focus on learning and not researching.
Kent Dolasky
I like to sit in on other classes that are similar to mine, it helps me to grow me knowledge as well as see different teaching styles.
I like to balance structure and times. I like to use good words and find out more about those. I make time on my weekends to think about my class. I am always learning more, to be better teacher.
