One common mistake instructors make in selecting course content is the coverage of material with an insufficient amount of time to cover it. Another common mistake instructors make is creating units that cover a major topic instead of breaking down the major topic into smaller units. A third common mistake that instructors make in selecting course content is including much more information on power point presentations than there should be information. Another mistake that instructors make in selecting course content is lecturing most of the time instead of incorporating small group and/or whole class activities to break up the lecture.
Jim,
Yes, and too much can be as little as 15-20 minutes worth of the same topic in one sitting. Most career classes tend to be longer, so it's important for instructors to keep in mind their audience. Variety, switch-ups, discussions, breaks, and physical activity (such as lab, if applicable) are examples.
Barry Westling
Too much information in a limited ammount of time. I have found this overwhelms students and discourages them. It should state clearly on the syllabus the correct ammount of reading material that is expected from the students
carla,
Students thrive when clarity is present. Everything we can do to make things clear, from explanations to reviewing course expectations, the more clear we can make things, better understanding will result.
Barry Westling
I agree. If you don't follow the syallabus, jump around you end up with confused frustrated students. The textbooks always address more information than we can cover.
Clay,
Boy, I agree. I really don't like most of the "Prepackaged" PPT lessons the publishers give (they seem more to be just a plain outline of a chapter). I can do much better putting my slides togther with both information I want, and formatted in the way I want.
Barry Westling
I tried to follow just the textbooks and supplied power point slides and got terrible results. When I applied real world solutions, the students understood better the goals the textbook had. I will also expand on things the book doesn't cover.
Rosemary,
These are great examples. I tell students "there is no such thing as time management, only self management (since we all have the same amount of time in a day). Going the extra mile to simply things is almost always appreciated by students since they often have chaos in their lives already, anything we can do to minimize frustration or assist understyanding is worthwhile.
Barry Westling
Chapters in teextbooks can be overwhemoing for students. The syllabus should help narrow down the most important concepts that sttudents must grasp. During class orientation, I refer students to this and explain that while everything in a chapter is important the syllabus can help them to narrow their focus to what is most important. This also helps them budget their time more appropriately.
Students need faculty to help them with time management as they typically cannot do this without some direction
Diana,
Great. They call something like that "chunking", where the instructor will provide say, 15-20 minutes of one activity, then switch to another, and another, and another. This makes it seem that time flys by, the students rarely get bored, we keep their attention, and more information is retained because the students have remained focused the whole period.
Barry Westling
Fitting too much in. We only have six week classes and there is alot of information that we have to cover in that time. I try to break it into smaller segments for the students.
Tammy,
Of course one way is to allocate class time for study. Some instructors feel there is not enough time yet students benefit from a supervised, in-class study group activity. Review at the beginning and near the end of class can help identify where some students are still having difficulty. by checking for understanding continuously, an instructor can determine where the students learning is at and where more emphasis may be needed.
Barry Westling
I would love my students who have difficulty with the material to utilize study groups but it seems that they are just to busy to come in early or stay after class to do so. Any suggestions?
Novella,
I sometimes say "taliking is not teaching". My meaning in this post is that there is a mistaken notion that if we say everything that is stated as course objectives we will have done our job in teaching students. Boy, what a mistake that is. To get students to learn requires effort, time, planning, lots of variety, trial and error, patience, and a willingness to be flexible and a tolerence for students who require more time and attention to learn what'[s required.
Barry Westling
The first few years that I taught I learned the hard way that to much content can cause the student various types of stress. commonly made mistakes include teaching over their heads, giving to much information and overwhelming them, not maintaining control of the classroom, not keeping students engaged. Learned to keep things simple but concise.
Eddy,
Media resources ought to follow the objectives, and there is so much available these days, we really have to be choosy in order to find the best among the just OK.
Barry Westling
By Eddy Mojena
In selecting material be sure to focus on key subjects and the objective if the overall material
When putting your syllabus together so students are on track with what’s covered in advance.
Anthony,
One way to help sure classes aren't rushed is by being adequately prepared. In doing so, topics can flow seamlessly from point to point, and adjustments can be made as the need presents. I always allow some time to discuss and review the day's activities as time permits. If I have to go over some, this review can be ommitted. But timing is tricky at times, and experience will help determine how long certain topics take, and how best to segment instruction into bite-sized pieces.
Barry Westling
The most important thing to think about when selecting course content is timing. Make sure that the classes are not rushed, and that you can easily cover what needs to be covered. Timing is a tricky thing, especially for new teachers, and it is important to have more content available, then to have too little.
Kyle,
One strategy is to decide what is most important for the students to learn in a given class session, and as best as possible, cover that material first, then go on to less important material as time permits. I know that most all of what most of us teach is important, but given the choice between lots of emphasis on the most important to rushing through everything and some students missing essential material, I would choose the former.
Barry Westling
