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Ask a question from your peers to help you in your professional work. Seek different points of view on a topic that interests you. Start a thought-provoking conversation about a hot, current topic. Encourage your peers to join you in the discussion, and feel free to facilitate the discussion. As a community of educators, all members of the Career Ed Lounge are empowered to act as a discussion facilitator to help us all learn from each other.

Handouts, handouts, Handouts

I am all making sure that the students are not so busy writing notes that they miss the extra information being discussed in the lecture. I also think it gives them an outline to help keep the students that write every word from asking questions just to slow the lecture down so they can write it down. It also provides a resource when they are not in class.

Daily Course Objective helps you and the students

While the course ouline is defined in a syllabus, Daily Objectives can be a benefit for you and them. Leading off the day with the Objuective of the day and then after the lecture and day, ask the students if you met your objective. If not go back, if you think yes and they say no, it opens up some dialogue for clarification of the topic.

Some Topics Can Backfire Without a Plan

You would think that easy topics you could get awaya without a plan, but you need at least an outline to make it work. In specific terms to help keep you on target! Make sure you at least write on the white board the topics and issues you wish to cover and it will help get the material covered.

Training and Instruction

Enjoyed going through this lesson and would like to print out test for traveling and review, is there a chance in doing this? Thank you for having me think outside the box. I will review this lesson a few times from here on out. Can you give more examples of: what is training ? and what is instruction (other than the ones given)? I see how this would help our group of instructors. Aha! Thank you.

Observe other instructors

How would you present taking work time to observe other teaching styles, I would consider this cross training.

Make up exam

Should the make up exam be different from the primary exam if a student is absent?

Rubrics are underestimated

I think rubrics are often underused by teachers, in that they are usually hidden in online classes. So, they are not easily accessible for students and therefor not often used by them. I also think students underestimate rubrics because they think they are tools for teachers and not for them. I have this habit of printing out the rubrics and telling at-risk students to use them as check-off lists.

Knowing what you know

The term metacognitive knowledge is interesting. I am currently in a master's program for library science and it resembles metadata, which is information about information. These terms seem silly, an almost redundant, but they are actually very useful. For instance, from a teaching or tutoring perspective, it is very important to know what you know so that you can properly transfer that knowledge to students.

Electronic documentation

We have found that documentation that is easily accessible to all coworkers has been key! For instance, we use the "G drive" to store important documents and files and anyone added to the network can access it. This comes in very handy in document sharing. There are web-based options for doc sharing as well, like Google docs.

Pretest

I like the idea of learning about students and assessing their levels of knowledge, but I think it is very important to make the students comfortable when giving a pretest. Tests can cause anxiety, and starting off a class with a test risks scaring off some students.

Watch that CLOCK!

AS an instructor in a culinary program we have to get through the demos and production set by the syllabus. When I say watch that clock - you have to do that or you are not going to get the info covered for them to be able to be successful in the next class. I keep it very light in my class and tell stories, jokes and experiences BUT I do tell them that if we are getting slowed down by anything that I will have to cut things short and that they are more than welcome to stay after to discuss question of confirm anything they are unsure of telling them to WRITE IT DOWN so that they remember later.

extra credit assignments

i thinkextra credit very important for student who may not be up to par but it allows the student a chance of success.

Guest speakers.

I teach at a career technical college. Since we instruct at such a fast pace, I am often correcting students behaviour, as well as surgical concepts. This some times paints a rather bleak picture of what is required to work in my chosen career. I find that a guest speaker has the ability to calm the students' preconceived anxieties while showing that this career choice is not nearly as bad as they might have thought!

Video Rules

As a video instructor I will often use video in my lectures, I don't like to go over two minutes, and longer videos I assign for homework. Is there a general rule about showing video in class?

Instruction Tools

Is role playing an effective tool to use when a topics are introduce to students?

Instruction vs Training

Is there another way to explain the difference between instruction and training.

Evaluate Instructor

Is it a good idea for students to evaluate instructor after a few weeks of instructions. In addition, compare final evaluation of instructor after completion of course. This can be used as a learning tool for the instructor.

Records are the best ammo for attack and defence

Many times in school I have seen students going to the dean blaming instructors for poor grades. keeping good records of attendance, progress, participation and other notes will be crucial when defending yourself against students who are set on blaming you for their failure. however use caution not do disclose any information to unauthorized persons. student records are confidential and misuse could have serious consequences.

Using comedy or tragedy to gain and keep attention

in the military before we started class the instructor would often show a funny video or an unfortunate video on the topic at hand to gain students attention. By bringing out the emotions such as joy, anger, fear in the learners, they can see a new aspect of the subject at hand. for example, when we learned about improvised explosive devices, we were shown videos of people killed or wounded by these weapons or videos of blowing up washing machines for training. these gave us a better appreciation for the power of explosives far better than a simple lecture with facts and numbers. Granted these are extreme examples I have found none the less that they are effective in gaining attention in the classroom and may be used several times through out the period of instruction to help maintain attention. by switching the videos content from comedy to tragedy or reverse it keeps the students involved as long as they are appropriate for the students age maturity level and content of the course.

Death by powerpoint

Being in the military for 10 years a common form of instruction was lecture with power point as an aid. These classes we ineffective at getting the knowledge needed due to long classes, cluttered slides and a "check in the box" mentality. The instructor teaching the class was often ordered to do so and often was unmotivated therefore reading off the slide in a monotone voice with his back to the class. These classes would go on for hours and once a year, several days are set aside for these periods of instruction which last all day. This resulted in the students becoming more interested in doing literally ANYTHING rather than sit through another minute of the material being presented. Most of what I got out of the classes was learning to spot others sleeping with eyes open. I take this lecture method with the previously described methods of delivery as a perfect example of what not to do