Erica Payton

I think it’s important to find ways to make learning fun and different. As a new instructor, I look forward to shadowing other faculty to see and learn different teaching styles and how to engage with adult learners. 

I learned about helping meet the extrinsic needs of students and how meeting this needs, will help ensure their intrinsic needs are also met.  

Learning about the average attention span and ability to retain information for adults was helpful.  The idea of mini lectures will likely help adult students retain the information better and allow for application activities in-between to keep students engaged in their own learning. 

I like the recommendation of a brief introduction but letting the students know something personal so they can relate as a human.  I am also terrible with names but allowing the opportunity for students to say their name and something about them can definitely help, especially in a smaller setting. 

As a new instructor. I liked the recommendation to have a notepad available at all times.  It is easy to have a plan and try to stick with a plan but things come up, and it's hard to remember all details. Having a notepad can allow me to continue with what was planned but to quickly jot down a reminder to go back over something later.  No matter how prepared we think we are, especially as a new instructor, we are likely to forgot things and things might not turn out how we thought, so we can learn from these… >>>

I learned about instructional styles and how as a new instructor, I can start by thinking about my past instructors and things that I liked and things that were challenging, which can help me develop my style and consider when teaching adult students.