Angela Zaugg

I appreciated the emphasis on tying the career standards to the lesson plan in the rationale section.  What a great way to get buy-in from the students when you can show specifically how the lessons will help them understand the concepts they will need and use in their chosen career.  I also appreciate how the lesson plan is a great place to start to organize course content and be prepared to teach every day.

Great ideas about time management, using various resources to engage the students throughout the class period, encouraging use of other resources besides the text and assessing what the students already know at the outset so you can build from there.

I plan to incorporate more formative assessments into my curriculum so that I have more confidence that the students know the material they will be tested on during summative assessments.  This material also emphasized to me how important it is to clearly state grading policies in the course syllabus and make them clear to students at the outset of class to avoid issues later on.

I like the idea of doing a status assessment when students appear to be losing interest or level of engagement.  Changing the method of teaching from lecture to group or open discussion about a case study could be an effective way to re-enage the class without having to re-invent how to teach the topics the students need to learn.

The pointers for PPT presentations gave me effective ideas about how to reduce clutter, reduce number of points/slide and increase font size to enhance student learning.

This module has made me realize how being a teacher truly is similar to being an orchestra conductor.  There are so many things to consider.  It requires self-reflection, a willingness to change, effort to really know and understand your students, organization, and creativity.  I think starting with a good lesson plan will provide the opportunity to incorporate all of these things into my instructional methods.

The idea of project-based learning is exciting.  It has given me better ideas of how to shift the focus of the project from a list of tasks that need to be completed to one where the students generate the tasks based on a real-life problem that they might have to address during their future career. 

I like using a curriculur map to ensure that the class objectives align with the national standards for our profession as well as the educational instituation's objectives. 

After reviewing formative assessments in this section, I have updated my lesson plans to incorporate more assessment ideas into daily instruction.  This will be a valuable tool for gauging my teaching effectiveness and what adjustments I need to make to address topics that the students haven't grasped fully.

Having resources like Bloom's taxonomy, helps me ensure that my lesson plans are building on one another and progressing the students to higher levels of learning.