Barry Westling

Timothy, Great. And we as teachers should be able to transfer the information we've gained from our past to the students. If so, we have achieved something good. Regards, Barry

Hi Bruce, Yes - job readiness in every way. Of course this includes the technical or specific career training. But also, soft skills, professionalism, attendance, dress - these skills are needed too. Technical will help get the job through their knowledge. The soft skills will help them keep the job and have a successful career. Regards, Barry

Hi Therese, Boy, "anticipating problems". What a great solution knowing oneself provides when dealing with problems, eh? The more we experience, the more we learn about ourselves too. It's like leapfrogging expeirence over improvement. Regards, Barry

Hi Bruce, You're right. When students see materials laid out, copies made, daily objectives wriiten on the whitevboard, etc, that conveys the teacher is ready for class and prepared to teach. This also conveys something about expectations students can develop for their own successfulness - we are role models. Regards, Barry

Hi Crissia, Great! I think when whenever we can personalize the learning experience by customizing or individualizing a specfic student need, the outcome will be better in nearly all cases.

Hi Juan: Great! When students can visualize themselves in the workplace or career area they're training for, that can motivate to higher levels of interest in their current classes and better performance. Sometimes, a student has only vague ideas about what their profession has to offer. This activity helps overcome that, often with inspirational results! Regards, Barry

Hi Miriam: These are great examples. Real world examples (stories) are almost always engaging, interesting, and catch the attention of students. Having good back up will allow us to bring something different into the lesson if time permits, if studenjts are losing focus, or if what we had planned can't happen for whatever reason. It's like having just a bit more class material available than is needed, but if needed, we're prepared. Regards, Barry

Hi Miriam: A good outcome for students is they can honetly assess without feeling "Oh, my grade can be affected by this test". If the activity is presented as non-graded, we'll get better responses to help us make our decisions. For me, the key word is emphasis: What do I want to emphasize (based on the information obtained from the pretest)? Like you stated, it can save time by focusing on a topic students already are fairly knowledgeable. Regards, Barry

Hi Miriam: Good! A perfect use for this tool. This is sort of like a survey, where in opinions are sought. With a pretest, information, or knowledge is sought. In either case, we make decision based on the information obtained. Regards, Barry

Hi Miriam: You've laid out a good plan for estimating time. Another aspect is the content. I start with the student learning outcomes (SLO's): What is it that the student will need to walk away from this course with? By beginning with these, all pathways in the course will feed into the SLO's. Once the SLO's are set, course planning such as you described can be conducted with the reasonable hope that the course will meet the desired learning objectives. Regards, Barry