Additional Forum 1 Questions
Hi Dr. Stover!
What presentation techniques and activities have you and/or your faculty utilized, from a best practices approach that have effectively engaged adult, diverse learners and, perhaps, learners with special needs in the learning process?
Because we are a visual program, critiques where students get to give feedback to one another with only minimal input from the instructor for guidance and focus are great ways for the students to interact and be engaged. They must practice good communication and active listening skills.
I think role playing can be used in many different situations and kinds of classes. When I
taught creative writing, I had some difficulty in
teaching students to write meaningful dialogue to
include in their short stories.Since I previously
taught drama in high school, I tried techniques of improvisation. One that was effective was hav-
ing two chairs up front with one student sitting
and one entering with a particular line of dialog. That line was to indicate who the people
were, where they were and what was happening.Such
lines as "May I take your order?" or "Mr. Jones,
your wife just had triplets!" After one or two
brief sessions the improvement was
tremendous in their writing of dialog that was
meaningful to their stories.
Hi all,
Great feedback so far in this discussion board. As mentioned by others, I also utilize a "module overview" for each class. Since I primarily teach entrepreneurship and marketing, I use business plans and marketing plans as the consistent reference point. On the first night, I give an overview of the plan. Then, in each class module, I show where we are relative to the biz plan or marketing plan.
I treat each class as a module since students seem to respond well to the idea that their are learning objectives for each module.
As part of my class/module kick-off, I ask students what they hope to learn by the end of the night. I write these on the board as a reminder to myself. The first couple of times, I don't get as many requests. But, by the 3rd or 4th class, I see students come to class with desired learning outcomes in mind.
I find adults also respond to the idea of building their "toolkit". I am big on storytelling in the class, but I always provide one or two practical tools that students can use in applying the theory. By showing how this is done in the stories or case studies, students can grasp application sooner.
Another technique that I find works well for adults is utilizing real-world projects. Whenever I can bring in a local business or nonprofit for our class project, the more students take the application of theory seriously. I start class with a review of the project and prior material, then lecture on new material (usually related to the theory/application in the next part of the project) and end with group discussion time on specific questions. This review, introduce, apply method seems to help reinforce ideas.
An interesting aside - most of my classes are night sessions that are scheduled for 4 hours (with a couple short breaks). It's a brutal marathon for adult students after a day at work, yet they say the stories and practical application helps the night fly compared to other classes in the same timeslot.
Thanks again to everyone for sharing great ideas!
Rick
Hi Jay and all,
I can certainly see the benefits of role playing in the classroom. Students are engaging more than just their ears and eyes in a passive way. They must involve their bodies and more intricate cognitive processes to role play, and this makes it more memorable. I tend to avoid this however in my high school classes (as experience has shown it to be more chaotic than useful). My question, however, has to do with teaching online. Can you recommend a model for online role-playing? I tend to teach composition courses and research paper writing if this helps (or hinders) the response.
Thanks Samuel! It sounds like a lot of interactive strategies. I have found that role plays work well when it is very clear as to what the desired outcomes of them are; it seems easier for students to talk about what they would say or do as opposed to actually taking on a role.
How do you set up a role play? Is one student's role to observe and give feedback? Do students switch roles for additional practice?
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
I use a lot of group work, small groups and group presentations including role playing.
Hi Paul!
This is Jay, the course facilitator. Excellent point about moving components of related content closer together. I've found too that when introducing a lesson, it is helpful to refer to how the learning outcomes relate to and support the last piece of information or application (the last lecture or demonstration for example), then when reviewing the lesson, comment on how the information may serve as a foundation to the next thing that is introduced. It's a building block approach that supplements what you have proactively done with your curriculum.
Could you give an example of how you have rearranged pieces of curriculum to integrate information together? Thanks!
We've sought to fix some problems prior to even entering the classroom. For example, re-arranging pieces of our curriculum so that relevant areas are closer to one another has been a huge benefit. That way, one study area leads right into the next. This helps our students with knowledge retention and personal engagement when they're in class. They don't feel so "lost" from one subject to the next.
--paul
Hi Christina! It is certainly more difficult to incorporate small group work in a technically-oriented computer class. Here are a few suggestions of activities that instructors have used:
Have students in groups solve a challenge or problem that you have provided them; it may be, for example, an error that needs to be corrected where the group needs to work backward. Though this can also be done individually, the group work adds a dimension of consensus as to what the problem is and how to fix it. You could even make it a contest and put the groups in competition to see which team corrects the error first.
Have students work in groups to develop and give a brief presentation to a new "client" about why a particular software application is a good fit. This, in a fun way, can force students to study the features and applications of a particular program or package.
Have students in groups identify the top five questions they would need answered about a new program or application after you have introduced it. See if other students in each group can answer any of the questions, or have groups pose questions to each other. Or, you may wish to ask questions and give the student learning groups a chance to compete in answering.
Just a few thoughts...
Hi Vickie!
I like the "ride in on the elephant" approach. Grabbing student attention at the beginning of a lesson is crucial for interest and buy-in.
As a young instructor, I always listed the learning objectives from the lesson on the board and often asked students what their expectations of outcomes were as well. It always amazed me how close their perceptions of learning objectives were to the actual instruction at hand.
Your elephant approach reminds me of the widely-used, effective teaching model:
Grab attention
Develop comprehension
Maximize the diversity of learning styles
Relate content to former and later concepts
Engage participation through an active learning environment
Balance hands-on skills and applications with higher order thinking
Summarize and reinforce
Funny that you should mention that, Steve. Just last Friday I conducted a faculty inservice program on introducing and summarizing a lesson. I was surprised to see that no one on my faculty knew what WIFM stood for!
One of the things I always like to say when talking about introductions is to "ride in on the elephant". In other words, make the introduction to your day/lesson/topic exciting, surprising, creative, shocking, etc. If you can grab their attention from the beginning, you set the pace of the entire lesson.
I'm anxious to see how many people in my school this week are actually following what they learned last week :-) I love to see those objectives on the board!!!
Vickie
I am very excited with the information posted and ready to revamp my class. I have other peers that it appears to come naturally to them to incorpate delivery with the various types of instructional techniques with ease. I teach basic computers, software, some hardware, and windows. I am not sure really how to incorporate small group activities and involve at a different level when the information is so techical.
Thanks, great information.
Hi Steve! Thanks for your excellent post. You hit it on the head as to the crucial importance of the introduction. It, as you said, provides a map of the topics and activities as well as clarifies resulting learning outcomes and expectations...sets the stage. We have seen many instructors just jump right into the lesson at hand and students get lost in the process.
One interesting best practice: we had one instructor at the beginning of class, as part of the introduction, ask students what they believed was important to know about the topic/concept/procedure. He wrote responses on the board and then matched learning objectives to them (plus adding where needed). This encouraged students to buy-in to the relevance as the class proceeded. The instructor also, during the introduction, related the lesson to both previous outcomes and future objectives in sort of a building block approach.
I'm sure your instructors also do a summary at the end of class. I used to have students keep a journal, then the last five to ten minutes of class write a brief summary of the day's
lesson(s) content/activities, any questions or confusion they may have, and how they could apply the outcomes directly to the workplace. This created an ongoing pulse of student mastery of information and application.
As you proceed through the course, please take a look at the additional forum questions that I posed to one of the other students (under discussion). I would be interested to here some of your instructors' best practices.
I'll be sending you a touch base email separately, thanks...
One technique that I have been helping our instructors develop is a proper daily introduction. I have divided it up into areas to be practiced.
It should include an overview on the board before class so that students (especially early students) can have a map of the days events so they can study or review information.
There should also be a daily verbal introduction. This should begin with an overview like on the board and be followed by the specific objectives of the day. The objectives should be spelled out and described with action verbs that will indicate to the adult learner when they have achieved the expectation. In a case where there are many expectations for the day then they should be broken down and given throughout the day at appropriate times. At the end of the day the objectives should be repeated and questioning should be used to verify the learner's expectations have been met.
And last within the intro, the instructor should communicate WIFM for that day's lesson. This adds perceived value for the learner, increasing the attention the learner has for the material.
Hi Maricelly! Thanks for your response! I have used role plays and small groups as well. I have found that with role plays, though very realisitc, often students go off track a bit and talk about what they would do in a particular situation rather than actually taking on the role, or they talk about something else entirely. Here is the last question in Forum 1, "What best practices have you used, based on communication techniques, to make role plays a realisitc and effective learning experience?
May I ask you to take a look at the additional final questions in Forums 2, 3 and 4? I look forward to your responses , particularly in the areas of learning groups and diverse learners, in relationship to ED106.
THE ACTIVITIES THAT WE USE AT THE UNIVERSITY ARE THE USE OF PRGRAMS LIKE POWER POINT, WE ALSO USE ROLE PLAYING AND SMALLS GROUP.
