Angela Zaugg

This module provided valuable information on understanding how the adult brain functions and special considerations to make for adult learners.  It is true that adult learners have so many responsibilities and not a lot of available "head space" or time to learn new concepts unless the concepts are seen as valuable or relevant to their lives.  It is important to demonstrate the value and application to the students throughout the course and be prepared to teach and demonstrate effective learning strategies.

This section has made me more aware of  how important it is to have documented evidence of safety instruction and guidelines outside of that listed on the syllabus.  It reinforces to me the importance of incorporating a safety quiz on top of discussing safety issues during each lab.

I have found that the consistent use of a grading rubric, provided to the student prior to a lab assessment, clearly defines for the student what they need to study and be able to demonstrate in order to pass.  This alleviates a lot of the anxiety a student might feel when knowing how to prepare for the assessment.  I appreciated the information on the 3 different categories of competency-bsed assessment.  I plan to refer to this to ensure that the lab assessments I provide incorporate all components.  

Lab courses are a great way to incorporate the kinesthetic, aural, and visual learning styles.  Often during lab activities, I provide a written description of the skill that is to be learned, along with a picture representation of it.  I demonstrate the skill myself while aurally describing each step, and then the students pair up in teams or groups to practice the skill.  Therefore, the lab activities combine the kinesthetic, aural, visual, cooperative, and active learning styles.  It is the perfect example of layering multiple types of learning styles into the activity so that all students, no matter the preferred… >>>

I find that lab experience is vital to teaching as it ties theory to practice.  As Charles mentioned above, lab instruction and experience really allows a student to develop the real-world skills needed to be successful professionals in their area of study/expertise.  It also allows the student to apply the principles they have been learning during instruction, thus creating a more holistic student.  Particularly as it relates to Bloom's Taxonomy, lab experience allows all three domains to be tied together, and as with instruction, lab activities should be well thought out and planned, and contain specific objectives and criteria, again,… >>>

I find that I use many assessment techniques throughout the courses I teach.  This module, however, re-emphasized to me the importance of having a rubric for nearly all of the assessments.  I would like to use the reflective technique more often in the course, although I think creating an objective rubric of a subjective thought process, could be more challenging.

I think the silver-lining, if there is one, to the Covid-19 pandemic, is the need to focus educational resources on providing the training and equipment necessary to help instructors and students become more proficient in the use of technology for teaching.  Although I miss the more human element of face-to-face teaching, I was pleased to see that I am familiar with using nearly all of the types of online technologies listed in this module.

I appreciated the information about Fink's Taxanomy.  Bloom's taxonomy is often noted, but I like the additional human/student-focused elements of Fink's Taxonomy that teach students self-awareness, which further enhances the learning process.

I believe career teaching and learning lends itself to providing more authentic assessments.  In the career training/profession which I teach, we have a clear set of outcomes that are required to be met by a national accrediting body to prepare students to take and successfully pass a national certification exam.  Because of this, we can develop assessments and instruction to ensure that our students can demonstrate the skills necessary to enter the profession.

I liked the suggestions for combatting learner resistance as it relates to the flipped classroom model.  It is important to gain buy-in from all students in your class.  I find that explaining why you instruct the way you do and referring to Bloom's taxology to demonstrate how the flipped classroom promotes higher levels of learning, can help when students resist this type of learning.  I think it is also important to start small and use activities that you can easily demonstrate successful learning of class outcomes to allow students to see the benefit of the flipped classroom.  I also appreciated… >>>