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.

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Gary Meers, Ed.D.

Discussion Comment

Making a Positive First Impression

Hi Michael, This is why we keep coming back to the classroom/lab time after time. This is what it is all about. We are having an impact. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Reasons for Enrolling

Hi Alicia, You are right about how important the role of the instructor is in helping students to see their future. By knowing that their instructor cares about their success the students get more involved in determining their future and success as well. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Making Instruction Relevant

Hi Diane, You might want to consider developing and using a baseline assessment for your course. By knowing where the students are in their basic academic skills you can then select the appropriate support materials in your career area. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Feeling Accepted Helps with Success

Hi Savitri, Thank you for sharing this great example of how a simple strategy can have wide spread impact in the lives of students. Keep up the good work. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Adapting Your Instructional Strategy

Hi Camille, You a number of good points about the different learning pathways that students take. By being sensitive to the decoding and recoding abilities of your students you will be able to help them to store and then retrieve the needed information from their long term memory. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Adapting Your Instructional Strategy

Hi Nancy, Sounds like from your comments that you are going to have some exciting times ahead as you reformat your lecture structure and involve your students more so they become active rather than passive learners. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Adapting Your Instructional Strategy

Hi Melissa, After your memory has soaked a while and you given your semantic memory a wake up call and you are ready to hit it once again you may want to move some of your course content over to the episodic side of the memory bank. The more students can pull on their previous experiences the higher the content retention rate will be. They see connections between their life experiences and what they are studying. Sometimes you have to work at helping them see those connections but when they do see them they remember the content. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Teaching to Multiple Intelligences

Hi Paula, You have a great strategy for trying to reach the learning preferences and intelligences of your students. I have found that by trying different instructional deliveries I get to use my creativity and that keeps my interest in the course at a high level even though I have taught the course many many times. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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The Learning Environment Effect

Hi Dennis, You make a very good point about how the online environment can be made comfortable for students like the on ground courses. Different strategies are used but comfort can still be created. We need to share those ideas as more and more instructors are teaching online courses. Gary

Gary Meers, Ed.D.

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Comprehensive Planning for Instructional Success

Hi Dennis, You are doing an excellent job of crafting a higher level course that has all of the essential ingredients as dictated by the field. You step by step process is going to provide the students with a solid and valid course from the very first time it is taught forward. Gary

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