Comment on Teresa Clark's post: Yes I agree with this a lot of what was covered in the course I have already started to implement!
As a new instructor, this course has introduced additional tools to supplement what I am already doing with my students. I appreciated the examples given for each of these teaching methods
I gained a few new tools for my tool belt! Among my favorites are: concept maps, catchups, jigsaws, and learning logs.
I enjoyed how this course covered four different strategies for instruction. I think the key is a combination of them to use in your classroom and varying your instruction thought out a unit of study.
I intend to increase the Independent reflection requirements - I realize that I am in great need of more independent short knowledge checks for my students. I plan to implement short pop quizzes on the days after my live demonstrations either in Construction Tech or Manufacturing in order to solidify the content that they learned. I believe this has been a missing ingredient from my teaching from this year. I have seen more mistakes from students that have watched my demonstrations and yet do many of the things I specifically warned against. I see this as the result of not having enough accountability. Though I like to treat my students like adults, they are also human and will sometimes opt for the easiest method (zoning out). These short quizzes will be repeatable until the student gets 100%. Hopefully with this layout there will be fewer safety issues and also fewer mistakes.
