Hi Gayle,
Good advice for every instructor. We need to constantly expand our knowledge base in relation to our field and our skills as educators. To do so will enable us to be more effective and efficient in our instruction while better meeting the needs of our students.
Gary
Definitely completing professional development courses as this one is a great way to enhance or add to one's teaching skillset. In doing so, you can tweak your current abilities by trying one new idea at a time to see how that works for you and your students. No one should let their teaching style stagnate; we should always be open to improvement.
Hi Deb,
This is so true for so many of us. Taking that step.
Gary
I like the first sentence of your suggesiton "Step outside your comfort zone." Reads easy but does hard. Great advice!
One way to expand instructional abilities is to take a class on to learn the most recent findings and trends in delivering content. Another way is to ask your students to complete an anonymous rating of your abilites in the class they just took with you. This method requires the instructor to be open to any and all types of criticisms.
Learning styles do differ and it would be advantageous to know what kind of learning style the student works well with.
Hi Rosemary,
These are all great ways to learn about new ways to deliver instruction and expand your expertise as an educator. This professional development strategy is going to serve you well.
Gary
I think one of the most useful things and one of the first things I do with new students is to ask each student to let me know how they learn best, and then apply that need to that student, and I ask for feedback as the year goes. I also watch, listen,and observe other instructos when I take a seminar or workshop. If that instructor makes me think or moves me in a particular way, I always say to myself hey that was pretty good I think I'll try that sometime.
By taking courses and learning about instructor strategy and styles.
I teach student development and we use an online assessment that takes much longer than using these 4 questions. Some students love the online assessments, some, not so much. (It probably depends on their learning style!) I have been in many seminar teaching situations, however, with time constraints, and having access to these four questions would have been fantastic. Thank you for sharing this!
I'm always looking for new ways to instruct students and to expand my horizons. I try new ideas when able to. Some work and some don't but I try and improve my ablities when able.
Hi Pamela,
I am excited for you as you work to find a mentor. I know having such a person to bounce things off of and to learn from will greatly enhance your instructional expertise.
Gary
Hi Gayle,
Thank you for the kind words about the development of a professional improvement plan. I wish you much success as you expand your abilities as an instructor while making an even greater impact on the lives of your students.
Gary
Hi Dr. Meers,
Thank you for the suggestion. I will submit an inquiry to our Chair. That's is a great idea. I know finding a mentor will make all the difference in building my confidence level and hopefully help me become a better instructor.
Personally, a professional development plan would greatly enhance my instructional abilities. The suggestion to identify and expand my strengths is an area I have not thought about, as I tend to focus on improvement of my weaknesses. Thank-you for this suggestion!
Hi Pamela,
I would approach my Division Chair/Dean of Education or who ever might be able to tell you more about how to get set up with a mentor. This way you can get a clear understanding of the role of your mentor and the ways you can ask for input without being concerned with your questions being seen as a weakness.
Gary
I am finding this challenging as a new online instructor. I received an email yesterday from CTU from someone who introduced themselves as my assigned mentor. I have taught my first five week session without any contact with anyone so I welcome this mentor. However, I am unclear he nature of this person's position in that I believe they have somewhat of a supervisory role as well. If this is the case, I am relunctant to go to this person for issues that might be perceived as weaknesses. This virtual world is all new to me as have always had live interaction with people in my previous work settings. Any suggestions on how to seek out mentors in this virtual setting?
I have found a few really great mentors, who I try to emulate, and bounce ideas off of for teaching strategies.It is helping me to find out what works and what does not and to keep a freash new perspective on things!
I can expand my instructional abilities, by taking additional training classes, participating in forum workshops and allow my colleagues to critique my teaching methods to improve my teaching methods. I also like to keep constant communication with my mentor concerning my teaching practices.
Soliciting feedback from students has always been useful to me in the past to gauge the effectiveness of my instructional style in facilitating learning within the classroom. I also found that observing other instructors and networking with others are helpful ways to expand my instructional abilitites. By observing and with others, I have been able to come up with new strategies to instructing that I would not have come up with on my own. However, these strategies seem to be more difficult to employ within an online teaching environment and I am wondering how to others have managed to navigate their way through this virtual environment. This is all new to me.
