It has come to my attention that for some reason, I have not received a grade for this posting. Therefore, I am posting it again and adding more of my thoughts on filling the gap between Standard and Lesson Plan.
Filling the Gap: Core Content Standards are minimal in their description to allow the teacher’s personality and skills to meet the state requirements on teaching the Standards. Each instructor has their own approach and in my core content, Music, we are allotted some flexibility in our teaching methods. I like to use performance, Thoughtful Education charts and games, technology and textbooks in meeting the standards. If I am using the same resources for each element of Music that is introduced or reviewed, then my students will become bored, and find the subject mundane. If instead, I am able to collaborate with Faculty and parents in approaching subject matter, include student interaction, participation and feedback then I find that my students are more engaged in the learning process. I carefully moderate each classtime, and reflect so that I can continually improve my teaching methods and assess their participation. This enables me to modify lesson plans so that I can keep what works, and explore other avenues for those points that need improvement.
Previous Post on Kearsley Ch. 6:
685 – Ch. 6 Online Teaching
Sorry it is taking me so long to blog for this week. We have had major problems with our LAN service and the rain. Along with the underground DSL and phone lines having some moisture problems, Tennessee PVA has upgraded and is affecting our local providers. That having been said, let’s talk about online teaching.
Interactivity and Participation – Participation is a major part of online courses and the way to engage your students is to keep interacting with them and keep them interacting with each other. Various discussion questions and written assignments will help them to voice their opinions and express themselves more if they are interesting and relevant to the students. Participation can take place without interaction, but it does no one any good if the student is a “wall flower” and is present in the online discussions or chat sessions, but does not give input.
While feedback is necessary to let the students know how they are doing, the important factor of it is the timing. As Kearsley states, it is “more valuable in correcting misunderstandings”, and these misconceptions can be corrected easily if the feedback is somewhat immediate.
Facilitation and moderating is done everyday that I teach. I have to make certain that students have the resources needed to complete their assignments and moderate how they use them and encourage them to use a variety of resources to discover which tools work best for them. Elementary teachers do this regularly because our students need more guidance and are introduced to so many new concepts that older students understand more.
On effectiveness of online teaching let me say that it is imperative that you know how the tools you choose interact with one another. The knowledge of your software will result in an air of confidence that the students have in your abilities to teach the subject.
This knowledge will assist in your choice of design for the course by knowing what aspects of each program will enhance the learning experience. If you are not familiar with the software being used and how it interacts with other programs, then it can result in confusion for the students. After looking at both sets of tools, the basic and advanced, I would add one more tool and that is an FAQ section. This would help alleviate some confusion and reduce the instructor’s workload.
I would use a few tools to keep it less confusing for the students, but at the same time, make a list of resources available for them so that they can experiment if they dare. This would allow those who have more time, or are adventurous to discover new tools and resources and to find which tools work best for them
