Course Planning
When planning my course, I try to think of ways to engage the students, and not just lecture, I want them to have an interest so that they retain the information.
Mark,
Good point about the failure factor. Most of use learn from our past mistakes and that makes us better problem solvers. This reminds me of a statement I read that goes as follows. "Good judgment is based upon past experiences. Many of those experiences are based upon bad judgment." Hopefully there is a lesson learned in our lives each day.
Gary
When planning coursework as well, I also try to build in that "failure" factor. "Failure" as in when things don't go right. It isn't always a perfect world, we need to teach our students what happens when this occurs and how to try to improvise and react when failure does happen. Contrary to the "NASA Apollo 13 program/movie" and more to the "Mythbusters" approach - FAILURE IS ALWAYS AN OPTION.
How you learn from failure or setback aka the school of hard knocks also defines you.
Darla,
Students love to hear stories about how their instructors worked through situations or resolved problems. Helps to make the content come alive.
Gary
Lisandra,
I agree as well. Variety and involvement are two essential ingredients for teaching success.
Gary
I find that personal experiences that pertain to the course content also helps to engage the students. It also helps the students put abstract information into perspective.
I agree, even though lectures are important I feel that students retain and enjoy the class more when they are engaged in any sort of activity related to the class. Worksheet, research, etc. anything to make the class more one on one!
I agree. This is what I like to add to my classes and my students seem to keep ingaged into the class content.
I also think of ways to engage my students and ways to keep them interested when I am planning my classses. I think group discussions and powerpoint presentations are good.
Besides asking the students I follow up the curriculum.
I agree with engaging students as much as possible. I try to incorporate more hands on labs for my Electrical Classes. The more senesces you touch the better students seem to retain info.
Shamara
I agree with you, I give my students worksheets, and I ask if they want to play games, or something different to help them learn and have fun while doing them.
Shamara,
Through student engagement you will get enhanced learning. You are on the right track with your approach to your instructional planning.
Gary
