Here is one place I feel the rub - class time. In my program the amount of time per term has been dropped by 20% since I began teaching 22 years ago. Of course, the expected level of content to be mastered has not dropped - if anything its expanded. I already feel pressure to get through the content in the time allotted (before loss of snow days, of course!). At any rate, while in the theoretical realm I agree with things like pretests, its difficult to find the time, to be frank.

After having experimented with PowerPoint for classroom presentations a bunch of years ago, I've relegated their use to only very specific circumstances. I want my students to take good notes AND listen to what I say; with a PowerPoint they tend to try to copy everything on the slide INSTEAD of listening. Also, there is an issue with the having to wait on (or worse yet - regress to a previous slide) occasionally for the slower writing students. By writing my notes, schematics and diagrams on the board myself, I am forced to pace my presentation to note-taking speed. Students also have some time to process concepts before moving on as well. I teach in a technical program (Electronics), so this may be a bit more important. Furthermore, I enjoy having the flexibility to go a different direction to address a specific question or area of interest - something not well facilitated by PPT. I enjoy working with PPT, but find I personally stay "in the flow" much better going "old school", and as a result, I feel I'm more effective in the classroom. Just my 2 cents.

I think there are many good ways to handle late homework. I always listen to the students reasons and give them the benefit of the doubt. Although points are taken off. If it becomes a habbit with the student, then I give them no credit.

To mix things up and to get an idea of how the class is learning the new material, I will have them play a game which each team gets to ask each other team one question. They use the book to find questions and enjoy challenging one another

When using white boards, I try to use a variety of colors; make some funny drawings realated to material to lighten the stress. Mixing sentenses with drawing seems to keep good attention. how about you

If you know your personality then you know your strengths and weaknesses. You can use this to better connect to your students need and how you can help them by changing your teaching style to meet there needs to learn

I consider myself a fairly seasoned instructor, and was glad to see the bit about "Making Mistakes", over the years I've made a few in front of class and it is always better to admit it correct yourself (usually with a chuckle) and move on. If you try and BS your way through you always lose respect with the student.

I have found that using pictures, bubble graphs and color have made a big difference in class.

It's very important to have a clearly devised plan for late assignments.

Pretesting is a great way to determine the strengths of each student.

I think having students involved with presentations help keep them interested in the material.

I have always had success with planning field trips to a place of business that corresponds with the course work.

In terms of assigning "weights" to various assignment types in my classes, the course syllabus spells out minimum and maximum limits within categories, but I do have a measure of flexibility. I tend to come down on the side believing that as my students get out into the "real world," they will be evaluated more on what they do on a daily basis, day-in and day-out, than they will on one particular day. Therefore, I like to assign as much weight as I can to class participation and homework assignments. As for sharing grades, the module recommends a couple of online gradebooks, but I use Engrade. It is very user-friendly, and the students can log in at any time to view their grade in the class. It will show them not only their "averages," but also their marks on each particular assignment within each category.

Our textbook comes with PowerPoint slides to accompany the material, but my students pretty much groan when I put those up on the board, because many of them have been "PowerPointed" to death. I think PowerPoint is a wonderful graphic tool, but I am finding my students often take the attitude: "Oh, not another one!" I have found some of the videos on the OpenCourseware sites to be valuable (along with streaming video), but those are not available for all content areas. My students in oral communications are required to use a visual aid, and most of them choose PowerPoint. The 10/20/30 rule is a good one, and many of those general guidelines included within this module are also in their textbooks. Many students want to play with animations, without realizing how distracting that can be.

As this module points out, we should always seek improvement. When I first began teaching, I remember evaluating the "good" and the "bad" in my previous instructors (the "pros" and "cons"). I would have to say that the instructors who provided the most structure and organization, the ones who were prepared adequately for class, were the most successful. I have never tried a teaching journal per se, but I do make marks within my notes and outlines concerning what works and what doesn't. I honestly had never thought about using the colored paper.

My school currently does not allow for extra credit. However, I found that students were showing up late for classes a lot and not reading the material, so I created reading quizzes. I give a short quiz on the reading material at the beginning of each class before we go over the material. If they are not there for it, they do not get the opportunity to take the quiz. If they are there, they take the quiz and if the cumulative grade on these reading quizzes at the end of the term is higher than one quiz grade, it replaces the quiz. If it is lower, the reading quiz does not work against them but is used as a study tool to see what they need to focus on for the main quizzes and tests. Since implementing this, students come to class on time and read the assignment more often.

We have a wide variety of educational & ethical variety of students. This helped

I think power points are so valuable to both students and instructors to provide guide lines

Good tips for improving classroom attention

Do an outline of all key points up on the chalk board.