JD Thomas

Finding a way to recognize the soft skills my students are developing will become a priority.   Rotating students through leadership roles in the class and then recognizing their developing skills shoud encourage them to practice even more leadership opportunities within the leadership control of the Instructor's goals.

I allow students to reseach recipies and techniques on line to enhance class experience.

I believe that I could get more feedback and understanding when I'm presenting the informaiton about a new class.  Get them engaged to have personal goals withing the class as well as the stated course goals.  For example, in Soups and Stocks we could get favorite  family/cultural recipes from their past that exemplify the techniques we're learning.  

My enthusiasm for my craft is evident to my students.  I try to make sure I realate evevything we do to its application in the Job world.  I try, but will try to do even better in making our lessons relevent to employment.  The "Why"...not just the "How".   I also could do better in encouraging the importance failure in the education process.  Practice and building good techniqwue comes from allowoing yourself to fail once in awhile.  

As it will always be in the classroom, some students are more motivated and adaptable than others.  I've learned over the years that alienated and disruptive students might need a little more personal coaching and reminding of protocol to make them more agreeable.  A little understanding goes a long way.  

I also have everyone understand that their focus needs to be on their classwork and not outside happenstances.  Life occurs...but our class is an oasis of cooking and cooperation for a few hours a day.  If there is truly a disruptive and violent student then policies are in place… >>>

In my particular case my students will participate in daily, sycronous video-enhanced lectures with more of a fact-finding discussion to post afterwards.  Since we do have lab time everyday for 4.5 hours I plan to actively address any learning/participation issued in person.  I'm planning on having a fun discussion topic that is more of a "DID YOU KNOW? where students research the history behind a given preparation or cooking technique.  I believe this method may spur curiosity among the dependent learners and move them into a more participatory catagory. 

In our new CMS I plan on making a bio clip of me with the printable narration page available.  I'll have the other culinary instructors do the same for their classes.  

I like the idea of having the students write an extended bio to share with the other members of the class  We do that now but there were a few prompts for thte students to get them writing that I found helpful.  

I also just saved a MODEL nutrition project I shared with the other class members.  Good idea and I'll get more examples for when we… >>>

I'm hoping that students will be able to navigate the system we're setting up for them. I'll be very supportive with students new to this type of instruction.   On-line Zoom and Workplace has been difficult for students but I've noticied that regularity with on-line lectures and responding to thier questions quickly gets more participation and puts them at ease.