My first day, I like to open with an ice-braker. A good one is, you have the students to tell 2 truths and 1 lie, and the rest of the class have to guess, which is a lie. The students really get a kick out of it. Another one is icebreaker questions like; what day in your life would you like to relive? What was dream job as a kid? just to name a few. Icebreaker help students to participate and transition into learning experiences.

I am new to this and I will try my best to learn from others.

Provide an environment that is conducive to learning. 

I completed an intensive course on Rubrics a couple of years ago and tried to utilize them in some of my assignments. However, I may have missed the suggestion, but I never really thought about using rubrics for course evaluation. I will be developing formative ones for each of my courses.

I have had many of my practices reinforced during this course. However, I can see some of the ways in which I could improve my current practice.

For example, I will be developing a Learning Plan as part of my portfolio for each course. This will help the students to understand the experience and have buy-in early in the course. I believe it will enhance the lesson planning process, especially, the assessment/evaluation step. 

I will also be working to develop some case studies based on the criteria offered here to enhance the retention and thinking skills of my students. I… >>>

As I was arguing with myself about the differences in my own classroom among students born in the United States, I arrived at the slide which included the subcultures in the continental US. I will be using some of this information in my classroom orientation to help my students identify reasons they might not want to participate in some group assignments. They are not aware of why they think differently, but it poses a challenge to try to accommodate all those differences and negotiate a successful assignment. So, thank you for that slide. It would be helpful to include some… >>>

It is a paradigm shift to go from being a student to being a facilitator. The acquisition of knowledge and the many exams we take in preparation to teach is in direct contrast to the role we have to play in the modern classroom. We are constrained by standards and time frames and pacing guides. It is a mindset that I will continue to work on changing.

As a new instructor I plan on engaging my students with small group exercises that keep them questioning the content they have learned.

clear presentation focus in the action plan is the key for success 

I find students have very multi-tasking busy lives academically and personally and find it difficult to achieve a good work-life balance. Often students have told me they could not afford a book or do not reach announcements or materials and are skimming through modules and instructions and rubrics, resulting in a loss of points. Additionally, students often do not check emails daily which can be my only way to reach them. I find using the Remind Text that some colleges allow to be valuable as all students have phones and it is a quick way to directly reach students with… >>>

I will be showing the class what they need to know to be successful in the class with hands-on training and education.

This course had some really great suggestions for making your own assessments. I typically use a lot of premade assessments that come with the program I use for instruction. I tend to make my own summative assessments, as I feel it is better to test knowledge of materials we actually covered in class. This course reaffirmed that this good practice. The suggestions will assist me when making these, i.e. percentage of true/false, making completion sentences have the blank at the end, not the middle. 

As a second year teacher, I will use many much of this information.

I enjoyed learning about the various instructional styles. It is important that students are taught in a way that is conducive to their learning styles and success. 

The biggest thing I learned is to get to know your students. By doing so you are able to know how each learns and how to adapt your teaching to meet all of their needs and set them up for success.

I enjoy reading inspirational quotes and writing them on the board. If a student is not having a great start of the day, after reading the quote it usually makes them feel better.  On occasion we talk about the quote about 5 minutes before class start, other times students may ask if they could share a quote to encourage others. AWESOME!!!

Plan: incorporate means to address different learning styles in each lecture

I have learned how to prepare mentally and physically as i take on the task of being a new instructor. I am not new to teaching but facilitating a classroom of adult learners will be challenging and rewarding. 

This information will be very helpful in the classroom.

this course helped me in understanding and implementing questioning in the classroom

there are two types of questions: opened and closed

each type has its own advantages and disadvantages

general speaking we prefer closed type as they are simple to create , easiest to understand and very useful during lesson summary, quick review and short quizzes

but it is better to use the opened questions more as this type of questions help in high level of critical thinking

types of opened questions: Comprehension, application, procedural

types of the comprehensive: comparison, extrapolation,translation and interpretation

i have learned about wait time (1st… >>>

Hello all, 

I have many takeaways from this course, but the main one is that I am human. Yes, of course I am an instructor, so I will automatically be held to a higher standard by my students, but the motto at ACC is, "Humans helping humans.". This is powerful, a strong reminder to myself and my students that if we go into anything scared to make a mistake, then nothing will get done. We must remember that mistakes are okay, and a first-time instructor starting soon, I am bound to make more mistakes than I can count. However, preparation… >>>