Mae Dorado

I find formative course evaluations provide the instructor with opportunities to adjust the course to meet students’ needs.  Student needs have changed for me every semester and I like to discover this at the start of the semester by exploring learning styles.  Once piece of advice that I found valuable, and I plan to incorporate, is online instructors should ask students approximately every 3-5 weeks what they would like the instructor to stop doing, start doing, and continue to do to help me run the course more efficiently.

I work with high school students and teach college level medical assisting curriculum.  The last few groups of students that I have worked with lacked experiences, which is something I struggle with every year.  Thus, I have experienced that sharing of experiences and collaborating in group discussions within a synchronous environment is a great way to encourage confidence and learn from each other.  Helping my students to feel comfortable about sharing their thoughts and interacting with peers is something that resonated with me after reading this section.

In my experience with teaching online courses, it is necessary to have excellent time management skills to allocate adequate amounts of time for online work.  I feel that teaching online is more time consuming than teaching a face-to-face course, because of the extra time it takes to communicate with the students or to guide students that are not comfortable with the online environment and technology. 

I agree with what I read in that " Therefore, the role of online instructor will include offline tasks as well as online tasks." and if you are organized, you can stick to the task… >>>

There are several benefits to value-added assessments, provides a clearer accountability measure for instructors, can determine how well students are progressing, recognize growth, identify failures and successes.  I find this is good in helping me to adjust the way I teach my classes, it is always different due to varying student ability levels and prior knowledge.  It helps me to feel good about the uses of collaboration in my assignments to help students and instructors learn from each other.

I think what really resonated with me after reading about Subjective and Objective Assessments is that adequate and appropriate assessments are not easy to create.  A poorly constructed test will result in grades that may not accurately reflect what has been learned. 

Subjective tests are evaluated by giving an opinion. Objective test, on the other hand, have right or wrong answers.  Subjective tests are more challenging to prepare, administer, and evaluate correctly; essays are a good example of subjective assessments.  Rubrics should be used in evaluating essays and should be shared with students with clear guidelines to help them focus… >>>

Assessments determine knowledge, attitudes, skills, and/or beliefs.  There are diagnostic assessments to be administered at the beginning to determine pre-existing skills or knowledge, then there are formative assessments which can help me determine ongoing learning, and lastly,  summative assessments to account for learning at the end of the instruction.

I rely on the use of assessments to determine student learning and improve on my teaching.  I have never taught a class the exact same way because each class has students with different learning styles and adaptation levels.   Don't be afraid to adapt to your students.

I learned there are a variety of technology assessment tools that should be used to assess student learning, selection can be based on a student's learning style...and it can vary based on what is best for the majority of your learners. I try to stay flexible and make adjustments based on what worked and did not work because each class can differ.

I am all about student engagement, the number of years that I have been teaching helped me to learn that engagement gets better evaluation scores and happier student learners.  I certainly agree with the module lessons that emphasize "Good facilitation techniques suggest that multiple strategies should be used to engage students."

I do lots of preofessional development and peer mentoring to find techniques that will work and help my courses.

I am glad to hear that much of what I am already doing is necessary to evaluate student learning and ensure that learning has occurred.  I teach in both online and face-to-face environments and highly utilize feedback that I receive from a student's evaluation of the course.

I have learned that highly engaged students are essential for the teaching environment, regardless of synchronous versus asynchronous environments.  I do alot of asking the students to refelct on what they have learned and experienced and share that in a collaborative way. 

I'll continue to use feedback on assessments as a way to… >>>

I have learned that communicating effectively is essential for establishing a pattern of teaching and will assist students in successfully navigating and getting through your course.  Through multiple communication means, such as, the syllabus, LMS Announcements, Face-to-Face Reminders, Student Feedback...I can be effective and thorough in my communication.