Many software courses use guided lectures to walk students through the introduction to software. The problem is that when students become accustomed to one type of activity it loses effectiveness. In these cases you have to change things up. It is often difficult to incorporate group learning into these courses and still reinforce learning objectives but it can be done. The trick is to constantly adapt course delivery to the audience.

At my school I struggle with the short 10 week term. I feel as if there is so much content that needs to be covered that lecture often wins out over activities. I would love to be able to do more activities with my students since I agree that they are a great way to integrate what the students have learned in lecture. However, given my subject matter I don't feel confident that students will learn the material through activities alone. I have a hard time deciding what will be skipped in order to bring more activities into my class and that bums me out.

Have you ever teamed up with another instructor? My recent experience has been better than I expected. Although my co-instructor has a very different style than my own, we seem to bolster one another. Where I am weak, she seems quite talented. I have learned a lot about bringing story telling and humor into the class from her and I hope that she has benefitted from our association also.

I try to use as many real-world examples as possible to illustrate the topic being discussed. Each student has different experiences and using a variety of examples helps every student to find one to which they can relate

I have found that there is an art to delivering. Having confidence in what you say, having control of your classroom, and being honest are all part of being able to deliver effectively. Don't be too starchy but at the same time never take yourself out of your professional environment. I am not saying you can’t have fun in the classroom. I believe the students are watching and in many cases, there is one or two that are waiting for you to make that mistake or contradiction or just a little inconsistence so they can call you out.

The texts for several of the courses I teach provide test banks and I see them as both good and bad. I often find errors, not only in the answer keys, but in the grammar and spelling as well. Frequently I find typographical mistakes too. I usually rewrite some of the choices on the multiple choice test banks because there are too many "all of the above"s or "both A & B" type answers. On the other hand, the test banks save me time and also give me ideas for questions to ask the students during lecture. I have also adapted some of the multiple choice test bank questions into completion tests or short answer tests.

I've been taught that, as a teacher, I should switch activities about every 20 minutes. My subject (anatomy & physiology) requires learning new, and sometimes words, some complicated processes and a rather large amount of plain old memorization. I use powerpoints for lecture, but need some suggestions on some different activities. Also, if anyone has any ideas on how to limit the time loss that occurs with activity changes, I would appreciate that too.

I do not give standardize quizzes due to the fact that I find many of them are flawed. I had a student this week upset because he answered a question incorrectly on a quiz I wrote. He answered the question incorrectly because he had taken the pratical, standardize test on the online student guide and the test gave the wrong answer.

There appears to be an epidemic of students with little to none soft skills. I spend five to ten minutes in each class period going over the soft skills involved in each lesson. The hardest soft skill to get students to use is proper grammar when speaking or writing. How do you break the habit of slang and colloquialism?

Does the Socratic method work better for all levels of course work? It is difficult to use the Socratic method in an intro level science class when the students have no knowledge foundation.

I teach a science course that requires a student to memorize. I have found that by cutting up my daily lesson plan into various games, students from all learning styles do better on quizzes.

Monitoring students is a critical part of basic instruction. You must be making constant "spot checks" to make sure everyone is comprehending the information as you go along. Also a very critical point,is being able to make sure your faster learners are not becoming bored.

There are generally two types of learning groups that instructors use. These are known as informal and formal groups: This is a key point that I will employ,hopefully with very successful results for the benefit of my students

Before going into the topic for the day I like to start of with something interesting that happened in my career that pertains to the topic. This gets the students interested and keeps them wondering how the situation was resolved. When I complete the story I like to move back to the topic on the white board and elaborate on how understanding this material that we are discussing today is relivant and extremely important to understand.

I use my whole class room space all four walls have training aids hanging for display an examples.For direction on what to expect out in lab where myself an students are to perform the physical task as a class.

Instructional Style as described in this reading materials are excellent. I teach in the medical field, my questions is, how do I present my course materials effectively to those student's with absolutely no medical background and for those with some medical background. I know its a challenge would like to get some advice on this area.

The most significant outcomes are peer learning, which aids students in retaining and developing learned material, and enhancement of learning through a social process, which helps students develop much needed teamwork skills.

How many instructors use or have access to "learning Style Assessments"? Our business college has instituted a course in which learning styles are assessed along with teaching the new students good study habits and techniques. I think it's extremely helpful!!

We are currently bringing in a new skills assessment software for our office application classes. I am anticipating that will give us a good overview of the students hands on capabilities with a specific software. For many years we would test only on the comprehension of the terminology of the software and not the hands on. I believe it is important to measure both areas.

I work and have worked in other places where some or all of the tests are created by the parent company. It is difficult to supply input and have it evaluated and implemented in a timely manner. I have been using some informal, ungraded assessments to help students understand the information prior to "Corporate" tests.