Gary Meers, Ed.D.

About me

I am an Education Advisor/Consultant for MaxKnowledge. I write courses that assist in the professional development of career college instructors. These courses range in content from the introductory level to advanced instructional development. I started my teaching career as an instructional technology teacher on the high school level, completed graduate school and then moved into higher education. I spent many years in the area of teacher training at the University of Nebraska. While at the University of Nebraska I stared working with career college instructors to improve their instructional delivery skills. As a result of these experiences I have been a consultant to career colleges throughout the United States and a number of foreign countries.

Activity

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Making Your Expectations Clear

Hi Timothy, Good point. By being consistent with your polices you will reduce your challenges from students late in the course when they are struggling to complete all of the assignments. It is at this time as you well know they start having "memory lapses" to the point they often don't remember that the assignments were ever made. Surprise, surprise. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Developing Student Rapport

Hi Bret, Good comments about the rapport question. I am a big promoter of developing rapport with students because I define rapport as creating a mutual understanding between instructor and student connected by dedication to the field. By developing rapport an instructor is able to offer consulting and input into their career development. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Increasing Student Retention

Hi Savitri, Your point about the need to keep trying to identify the instructional needs of students is a good one. With larger classes online the key is communication. Keep communicating with the students and you will start to see what the different learning needs are of different groups of students are and how you can support those needs. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Your Instructional Style

Hi Dana, This is a good idea for recalling how the projects progressed and then how each person gave input into the project. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Adapting Your Instructional Strategy

Hi Chris, After many years of research both the medical and educational communities still don't know a lot about how the brain really processes information. That being said think about how much we do know about learning currently. The use of muscle memory is a good example of that. If we can get the procedure and/or content stored in working memory then retrieval becomes much easier for the student. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Adapting Your Instructional Strategy

Hi Chris, Good point. Being a book lover I understand what your are saying about having an appreciation on the part of students for the books that they will be reading and learning from. In our digital age there is a drifting away from the traditional text format so we need to try and introduce our students to course content in as many ways as we can. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Adapting Your Instructional Strategy

Hi Molly, I will look forward to hearing from you about how all of these different techniques work out for you. I know you are going to have great success and enjoy seeing the students progress in their learning and retention. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Effective Retention Strategies

Hi Suzanne, You responded to the question in a comprehensive and well thought out manner. The key to the question is the understanding that the instructor is critical to the retention of students. The Student Services Office can do many things and they should but the personal relationships developed by the instructors are essential. This is due to the fact that the instructors are with the students daily and they help to integrate the students into the learning environment. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

The Learning Environment Effect

Hi Colin, Good point about how important the learning environment is to student success. If it is well designed and laid out then it often becomes unnoticed by the students even though it is critical to their success. On the other hand if it isn't supportive then the instructor has a big challenge of trying to overcome the issues related to the environment. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Making Instruction Relevant

Hi Chris, Right you are. This is a way of individualizing instruction based upon their learning preferences which enhances their success and content retention. Gary

End of Content