Barry Westling

Christopher, When the weights are fixed, it does limit individual merit and scholarship to some degree. I think the component weights out to be proportional to the amount of learning that is expected from the assignment (or group of assignments). The idea of "weight" should represent empahasis in relation to time, effort, and contribution to knowledge obtained. Barry Westling

Christopher, You're right, and these days, there are limitless resouyrces to relatively easily access. Embedding these images, sounds, and situation in a PPT slide, or burning onto a disk or thumb frive makes access easy. Other than the time and effort it takes to ready these, there is no excuses for not provide a robust lesson that include all the relative sounds and images that are pertinent to the lesson. Barry Westling

Eduard, I like to think "how did that class come across from a student's standpoint?". When I do this, I see a lot of things that " shoulda, coulda, woulda". These make up substance for notations in the journal record. Barry Westling

James, Teachers who regularly journalize do find benefit from this activity. I use different methods, from written notes to word processing files. Also, I'll use post it notes to make notes about something I need, to add to the discussion, a fact I want to use, etc. These then get updated when the course gets reviewed. Barry Westling

Mark, As teachers, we all have various abilities and stronger traits that make us useful to our employers and students. Naturally, personality will always be a factor. What we all have is the capabilty to be approachable, prepared, and willing to put in the time, effort and planning required for effective instrution. Also a willingness to be open to continued improvement will target weaker areas that we want to see strengthened. Barry Westling

Christopher, Another way to look at this is what contribution the weighted components have to the students learning? I don't too much weight on a component that reflects little about the degree of learning the student obtained (or too little weight on an extremely important principle). Sometimes, it's trial and error until we find the right balance. I also find this varies from class to class. Barry Westling

Nancy, Super! When students can see their teacher is open to reasonable discussion, that adds to credibility, respect, and appreciation for the teacher's efforts. It's a fact, our best efforts (or those of others) can have flaws. It is only fair to make adjustments for legitmate errors. I review tests immedietely following and this gives an opportunity find errors, or appreciate the unintended ambiguity in a question the student may see but I missed. Bad question - revise it or throw it out for next time. Barry Westling

Eduard, Great. These modules do share a lot of different ideas, some catch on others don't but they are always worth reading for the benefit of teacher improvement. Barry Westling

Nancy, You've made a good point, and I think this describes how responsible students ought to use the information gained from a discussion with their teacher. If it were personal finances, it'd make perfect sense to prioritize. So it is with time and effort in oplanning valuable study time. Barry Westling

Christopher, Change ups like you describe keep sluggish minds awake, interested, and involved in the lesson. Also, this reinforces retention of needed material better than longer stretches of the same activity. Barry Westling