Barry Westling

Hi Ian: Yes, having an understanding about yourself is important. Your comment about weaknesses is important, too. If an instructor is overly conscious about a deficiency of some sort, believe me, students will pick up on that. Just as significant is when there may be a deficiency present and the instructor is not aware of it. That's bound to impact the student learning as well. Willingness to build on strengths and openness to acknowledge and improve weaker areas really takes a commitment by the faculty member. Regards, Barry

Hi TC: You've made a good point about using your back up or alternate plan if too many students are absent and it's an essential skill that all need to learn. By doing so, you have provided meaningful learning to the students present while not interfering with the students that are absent. The key is to make sure what is presented in your alternate plan is useful information and the absent studnts are not penalized for missing it. Regards, Barry

Hi Gloria: You've made a good assessment of the benefits of knowing yourself as an instructional leader. I strongly feel we all do at least an average or good job as instructors. But we can always do better. Therefore, the more information we learn about ourselves and how we can help our students, the better the student outcomes will be. Regards, Barry

Hi Vonia: If we as instructors accurately answer this question, developing a grading system will be a lot more on target. That question is: What are the student learning objectives? Once we know what the expected learning is to be, we can then determine how best to measure that learning. Of course, in reality the process is not as simple as I've portrayed it here, but the essential principle is the point I'm making. Regards, Barry

Hi Lori: I think your participation points is a great idea. The more the student is involved, the more senses utilized, the more ingaged in the learning, the more likely the student will remember the experience and result in a better learning experience. Regards, Barry

Hi Lori: Can you give an example of some of your different back ups? Regards, Barry

Hi Lori: Can you elaborate on what you mean by "at least two ways to present?". Regards, Barry

Vonia: Good points, all. Do you think it's reasonable for an instructor to adapt their personal teaching style to more closely match a students individual learning style in order to achieve optimal student performance? Regards, Barry

Hi Vonia: I think the advent of PPT has been outstanding for the educational community. Unfortunately, there are real creative ways to use the resource and some less effective methods. Even proffesionally produced slides from the textbook editor can be ineffective if not carefully integrated into your lesson plan for a given topic. For instance, having students sit through several hours of PPT slides without much interaction with the instructor rarely instills much meaningful, long-term learning unless it's planned very carefully. Can you think of other ways the effectiveness of PPT can be unitentionally diminished? Regards, Barry

Hi Stephen: You are correct that good evaluation systems should be consistent and fair. These tenets are easily constructed when rote memory or quantity of submitted items is the only requirement. Being consistent becomes more challenging when manual dexterity or manipulative skill is being evaluated. Fairness could be challenged when thought, opinion or argument is being evaluated, such as in a written paper. Clarity of what is to be evaluated accompanies fainess and consistency very nicely. Regards, Barry