Are You Prepared for Teaching Your First Course? BY KEVIN L. BENNETT So far, you have done a job. After several years of graduate school, your department has given you an opportunity to teach your very own college level course! Your imagination runs wild as you picture yourself performing mesmerizing oratories on the scientific method or the history of research on cognitive dissonance. There is a delightful synergy between you and your eager students who hang on your every word, applaud your insightful and witty comments, and commend you on exam day for a superbly crafted test that challenged their mastery of the material. As you lie awake in bed with nervous anticipation, you envision a scene from the movie Dead Poets Society …show more content…
One thing I like to do is to provide a glimpse at things to come by selecting a few examples of some of the “juicier” topics and explore them briefly. If you are successful, both you and your students will walk away from the first day feeling very positive about the course and excited for the rest of the semester. If you have never taught before how do you know you’ll love it and the class will too? Well, you don’t. But the singer Neil Diamond once said that even when he didn’t know the songs perfectly he would always perform them with devotion. This is what the audience tuned into. (O.K. Maybe you don’t want to take advice from Neil Diamond, but in this case it is appropriate). You will find that confidence and energy is self-fulfilling and it will lead to positive outcomes in the future. PREPARATION We’ve all experienced good and bad teaching. Set your sights on being a good teacher while you’re still early in your career. The single best piece of advice is to not leave class preparation until the night before. As a graduate student, this might seem impossible, but make it a goal. Depending on class size, course content, and room arrangement, you’ll have a choice between using the writing boards, overhead transparencies, or a projected computer screen. Of course, a minimalist approach wouldn’t use anything at all. I suggest starting out fairly simply, concentrating
Ask students if they have and questions or concerns they would like cleared up before moving into the activity.
In Module/Week 3, you will write a 750-word (about 3–4-pages) essay that compares and contrasts 2 stories from the Fiction Unit. Before you begin writing the essay, carefully read the guidelines for developing your paper topic that are given below. Review the Fiction Essay Grading Rubric to see how your submission will be graded. Gather all of your information, plan the direction of your essay, and organize your ideas by developing a 1-page thesis statement and outline for your essay. Format the thesis statement and the outline in a single Word document using current MLA, APA, or Turabian style (whichever corresponds to your degree program). You have the opportunity to submit your thesis and outline by 11:59
Engaging students in the classroom can be a difficult task. Understanding the process of how students learn can help a teacher adapt the lesson to meet the needs of all students. I will encounter students that are not intrinsically motivated so I will need to find different ways to motivate each and every student. Understanding how my students learn can provide me with insights as to how to help each student learn which will minimize classroom management problems.
Task 3: demonstrate how to support children and young people in making choices for themselves.
As a practicing teaching, it is responsibility to create and maintain a safe and supportive learning environment for students. Whilst on professional experience at a local school in Cairns, I taught a series of lessons (artefact 4) for a year 8 Health and Physical Education class. In order to effectively teach each lesson, I had to manage the classroom activities and challenging behaviours. I used the ten micro-skills for classroom management to not only manage students’ behaviour but also ensure inclusive student participation and engagement.
History suggests that the overwhelming majority of human beings have had to choose between either tyranny or anarchy
This was by far the most challenging course that I have encountered while obtaining my Master’s Degree in Educational Technology from UCMO. That is not a negative comment as this course has actually impacted me professionally more than any other course I’ve taken to date. This course has taken more time to complete the assignments, more of my attention to detail, and more of my creativity. The last point was the best part about this course. I consider myself to be fairly creative and this course definitely allowed me to do that while bringing my somewhat odd personality to a professional forum. For this I am grateful. Let’s get to the good stuff, shall we?
In summary, this course has really educated my view of being a teacher as well as being able to interact with today’s diverse and fluctuating educational setting. Therefore, the discussions were very good ways in understanding how
From an early age I found learning hard and in my early educational years I
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Reflective practice engages practitioners in a continuous cycle of self-observation and self-evaluation in order to understand their own actions and the reactions they prompt in themselves and in learners (Brookfield, 1995; Thiel, 1999). Reflective practice is considered as an evolving concept which views learning as “an active process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe, analyse, evaluate and so inform learning about practice.” (Reid, B 1993 cited in Garfat, T. 2005).
“Be a reflective teacher. Honestly look at what you do from time to time. Evaluate the purpose of your role as a teacher.” (Robert John Meenham, 2011)
Education has long been the center of reform with new ideas about learning and teaching. Educators are regularly introduced to new teaching strategies, curricula and rigorous standards in an effort to provide effective instruction to students. However, the pursuit of proficiency in mathematics and reading through the use of research-based methods requires an understanding of the learning models and theories that both drive instruction and learning in the classroom. In this paper I will address the evolution of ideas about learning and teaching in education as well as address the shifts in learning in the 21st century.
This paper explores the various methods I have learned as a student in the introduction to research course. The skills and methods taught in this class have been presented through course textbooks, online articles and videos, and interaction with the professor. Other opportunities for learning the research skills and methods occurred through writing of papers, testing knowledge through quizzes, and through interactive discussion board threads and posts. In addition to acknowledging these learned methods, this paper also includes insight into how I will be able to proceed in future courses, applying this newly acquired knowledge of research along with a biblical worldview, and how to properly examine research methods against the consistency of biblical principles and ethics. The challenge in writing a paper like this has been to write it in the format of an APA article, as outlined within the APA Manuel. Much of the context throughout the paper may seem less than scholarly, given that this is a paper written by myself, about myself, but that context will align with the instructions for the assignment.
In the field of education there could arise many philosophical ideas of each individual teacher. Many of the past philosophies have been and still are used in today’s education programs, such as the Socratic method. My philosophy will also contain some of the many philosophies of the past and possibly the future. I will state the nature of students, the nature of knowledge, the purpose of public education, method, and curriculum according to my own philosophies, which also may be based the philosophical ideas of previous individuals.