Alexis Ulseth

The idea of "closing the loop," involves many different methods of evaluation by yourself, your students, and your stakeholders. It is important that you take feedback as constructive, and consider it in both qualitative and quantitative ways. This is the best way to ensure that you are doing right by your students. 

First, there should be several types of assessment, both summative and formative. Both give you feedback about not only what the student is learning, but how you are teaching it. Feedback on assessments is just as important as it emphasizes what the student did right, or what they can work on. A good example of this is a rubric. 

A good syllabus is critical for students to know what they are supposed to be learning. It also helps with communication between students and students (and students and instructors, etc.). Additionally, you need to think about students' prior knowledge and experience because not every student is comfortable with the same work and learning system. 

I have learned about the benefits of creating a module system that is constant throughout the semester. It helps students in ways that lets them concentrate on the content rather than being confused by the course set up. 

I thought this section on critical thinking was interesting, as a science teacher, because it reminded me of the scientific method. The first step is to always observe and then ask a testable question. From there, you need to do research, test your hypothesis, and often go back to the drawing board. But it is always important to reflect on where you went right or wrong. 

From this section, I learned about different types of intelligences. It was interesting to read about emotional intelligence vs IQ. I think the ability to problem solve is just as important as the knowledge that you learn in school. I also liked reading about reflection as it is something that we should do after every decision that we make, whether it is as a student or just as a person. 

The major concept that I gained from this section was that judgement is an important thing to have. Rushed decisions will lead to bad choices and outcomes. It is important to have all the facts in order to think critically, which goes back to the original point of asking questions. Without proper critical thinking, you make poor decisions that can impact your life and your learning. 

In this section of the critically thinking module, we learned what critical thinking actually is and that we need to use it in our every day lives as much as Socrates used it back then. It is important to know the whole truth and actually think about the concept, rather than going off of someone's word. We can apply this to students through the idea of misconceptions. 

In this section, I understood two major things. First, you are looking to foster a community of learners, so that they can learn and build off of each other and their knowledge. Second, it is important to use rubrics, and carefully constructed rubrics at that, to ensure that students know what is expected of them in a discussion post. For example, I always look for critical thinking and try to model that. 

For this section, the importance of communication between different groups of people was emphasized. You want to find a way to meet all students where they are, but also help them become better communicators and students. You should also consider how you interact with students to model proper communication.