Hi Thomas,
Great comments about teaching adults. We truly are all kids inside. Some of us let the kid out and others don't. It is always fun to see one of the kid inside come out in adults that don't want to have fun while learning. When they do they become a big fan of learning. This is what makes teaching so much fun.
Gary
Hi Dianne,
This is a great way of making it real for your students. It is not you just saying it but practicing Chefs in the field that are saying it and they are the ones that will be doing the hiring.
Gary
Hi Mary Jo,
With real estate it is location, location, location. With demonstrations it is practice, practice, practice. Great to hear the information has been helpful to you.
Gary
Hi Ty,
You have a good plan for keeping your students informed about what is going to occur each class meeting. This way they can plan their work loads to make sure the complete all of the assignments in a timely and efficient manner.
Gary
Hi Mary,
Good to hear about the course changes that you made. These kind of efforts are what keep teaching interesting. A dramatic shift like this is like teaching a completely new course and each day, as I know you know already, is an adventure. Keep up the good work.
Gary
Hi Dave,
This is a good way of making it real for your students. They know by you getting and using the new software that you are keeping current in your field and that is important to your students.
Gary
I teach a Project development class. One of the projects that I do is that I give the class a real location to map out and create a computer network system to allow the business to run more effectively than they did without the network. Although they will not be able to actually install the system, they can go to the location and take measurements and examine the layout of the business, which is usually something open to the public or that I get clearance for them to be there. I have had a tremendous positive response from every class that they really had fun and that they learned alot from the project.
I'm a butcher and teach a meat fabricating class. The meat never changes. This is a hands on class, and the stratagies are always the same. Watch me do it, now you go do it.This approach is relevant to what I'm teaching.
When there is a new version of software that will be introduced soon to the public, I will investigate and also use it myself to see the pros and cons and relate the findings with my class.
I evaluate the changing standards and progress in compression and streaming applications and bring new advances, like SATA drives or a HuffYUV lossless codec to the class's attention by bringing in printed news and tech briefs. I also integrate newer formats like HDTV 1080i into the Lab exercises to make them familiar with the latest standards in production.
For editing classes, I will often reference recent movie releases and search you tube for recent documentaries that are timely and well-produced as examples of how the art of storytelling moves and shapes our culture, perceptions and social paradigms.
I've recently employed the Team-Based Learning method for my anatomy class (one quarter completed), and was very satisfied with the results for my students. There is a lot of adjustment to be made, of course, as I turned a primarily lecture (75%) and lab course into an almost all group-collaboration class in one fell swoop. I think this method of teaching is a wonderful way to help the type of students I teach (cohort) as they go through the program together. Just this one class has learned effective group-study techniques and has learned to take personal responsibility for achieving the learning objectives.
I hold myself to a rigorous study regiment so as to remain contemporaneous myself. Additionally, I try to observe and dialogue with students on campus regularly so that I may better grasp their perspectives, understand their experience, and get a sense of their cognitive location in the program of study.
I will try to break down long lectures to 15 minutes maximum lengh, and do a little demo between each mini lectures to keep the student focus and make the lecture more interesting to the students by demonstrating though the demo.
I use various strategies. I use lecture, question and answer and though sometimes the answers are hard to pull out of them sometimes. I use group activities and labs. I usually go beyond what the syllabus requires so all students will find their weakness and strengths. I find that way I can involve the students to help explain how they accomplished the task. This give the student that completed the task or lab a chance to explain it to someone else making then think about it in a different perspective and sometimes coming from a peer instead of an instructor they will understand it better. If need be I can work with a student one-on-one so that they are prepared as possible for the next level of classes.
I try to indentify the specific needs of the students as well as their learning modalities. From there I tailor my instruction style and perseverate on those items that students need more help with.
I teach a long term program to students with varied career goals. Our program is set up to expose the students to the wider range of the field and I make sure to regularly talk to the group about why each unit is important to them.
Roughly speaking there are, say, 3 different general career paths the student may be interested in. If we are studying a unit that seems to be focused on one particular part of the field I talk about some of the knowledge and skills that can be applied to other parts of the field.
By taking the time early in the course to learn what topics are most interesting to each student I know which ones to watch during certain portions of the class. I think it is important to make sure that the students that are most interested in that topic are getting what they want AND I think it is equally important to make sure the less interested student realizes they are learning important stuff.
The fact that the course content has been well considered and regularly assessed for relevance makes it easy to convince the students that they aren't wasting their time.
I teach a long term program to students with varied career goals. Our program is set up to expose the students to the wider range of the field and I make sure to regularly talk to the group about why each unit is important to them.
Roughly speaking there are, say, 3 different general career paths the student may be interested in. If we are studying a unit that seems to be focused on one particular part of the field I talk about some of the knowledge and skills that can be applied to other parts of the field.
By taking the time early in the course to learn what topics are most interesting to each student I know which ones to watch during certain portions of the class. I think it is important to make sure that the students that are most interested in that topic are getting what they want AND I think it is equally important to make sure the less interested student realizes they are learning important stuff.
The fact that the course content has been well considered and regularly assessed for relevance makes it easy to convince the students that they aren't wasting their time.
I have implemented PowerPoint lectures into my classroom. I tend to put bright images on them to keep the classes attention. I also give lots of group work so they may work together to solve problems.
In the latter pages of the syllabus I have an outline of each day's topic for the duration of the class, day 1 to day 30. I let the students know upfront that this is a guide and is contingent on how they are learning.
At the start of the class I go through the leasrning objectives for the day and then split the delivery into lecture, powerpoint presentation, open discussion and a pop quiz that we go through that day for the answers. The students get points for completing the quiz. This way I know the topic has thoroughly gone through and the majority of students have a comprehension of the material.
Sometimes I use a pop Quiz (such as pasrty cream) on a item that I know the students have made in previous modules. This can help them to reinforce the methods and techniques needed, and it can help me assess which students may need more assistance on the particular skills of the task.
By doing this kind of thing I can tailor how specific my demos need to be in certain areas.
