Katie,
You are approaching your students with strategies that enable them to see relevancy and make applications. This is what your field is about and you are helping your students to be better prepared when they enter the field.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Mindy,
You have the "makes things interesting" part right. This is one of the challenges in teaching. We often have to make adjustments and take new directions as a result of the students we have or schedules that have changes. As you say keeps things interesting so it is for sure we won't become bored.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
For your learners to be able to succeed, you first have to understand them and how they learn. I teach IT courses, and I find that most students learn from DOING, not from reading or memorizing information only.
I have had to change a teaching stragety in mid course to adapt to students who can have one set of behaviors at the beginning of a course and then suddenly change. It makes it a challenge to be flexible enough to be able to change up a lesson plan almost on the fly. Keeps things interesting! Mindy Smith
Understanding the basics of learning is definately going to help he in teaching culinary arts. Students are trained to follow the recipes step by step, but when it is time to present thier plate, many fall short in the abstract. I plan on presenting to the class that these are entirly different steps using different parts of the brain and both need to be excercised and practiced.
By being able to adapt to each class/student, we can bring ourselves to them. I find talking over their heads and rattling off information I know and maybe 1 other student can follow is working against everyone involved.
We sometimes need to slow down and find different strategies to involve the whole class.
I try to deliver my lectures as though I'm one of them. Learning with them and finding new ways to connect, can make the class more comforting. This seems to put them at ease enough so they may not worry about the subject, but become part of it.
LaToya,
Right you are about need to know and understand the basics of learning. By knowing the basics we will be able to customize our instruction more accurately to meet the needs of our current students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Erica,
Good point about pacing. Yes, it is easy to get too fast in our delivery since we know the material so well. This is why we need to slow down and occasionally stop to reflect on how effective we are in our instructional delivery and then make any adjustments we need to so we have engaged students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Uderstading the basics of learning provide teachers with a foundation of where to start when teaching others. If a teacher is not adjusted to the basics of learning then it may cause complications when teaching students.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that I've seen the stuff they're learning a million times, so it comes easy for me. I have to slow myself down and teach them the very foundation and not jump ahead and try and show them more abstract information before they have an understanding of the foundation. This course helped to remind me of that.
I agree, if you and the student can adapt to each other you will know what learning technique works best with each individual student
Wendy,
I know you will see great benefits in earning the respect of and developing rapport with your students by taking a few minutes to do an introduction session.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Wendy,
Good observation and a valuable one to remember. If we are not excited about what we are teaching it is for sure the students won't be either.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
This is a great idea. I work at a career college with a packed syllabus. Something is programmed for virtually every minute of our sessions. But, I still see the value and this and am thinking how I can make time to get to know the students better at the beginning of a class, rather than learn as we go along.
It occurs to me that not only is the instructor helps students more when he/she varies the style of delivery, but makes him/herself a better teacher by relieving the boredom quotient as well.
Dale,
This teaching model increases the cognitive retention rate of your students because they are "working" for their knowledge. They have to think which is something that can be usual in a college classroom since a lot of students want to be spoon fed the content.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
My class is technically based and hands on with lecture. I have learned to adapt my teaching strategy as to remain partially silent about some areas. I clue students in to some fact, yet deliberately remain silent to the entirety of the concept while in lecture.
Once the students are hands on and physically working on the project I then elaborate more on the specific areas. They memorize with their hands what they hear and see.
Linda,
You have outlined the learning process so well. The more opportunities they have to make connections between content and their life experiences the higher the level of content retention. This is a win win situation for them and their future success nursing.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Linda,
Good way to wrap up a course and check for learning. Their sharing of what they have learned with the groups reinforces the content one more time for them as they get ready to exit.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Linda,
I have used these as well and they are great not to mention a lot of fun to use because of the instant feedback that is given.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
