Hasmik Agadjanian

Active learning is preferred by adult students. It helps the students take some control over their learning process: it's less threatening for them, and they can use individual tasks in a group and learn on the same time. 

When engaging students in an active learning experience, it is important that the instructor is clear on what is expected from students.  The planning of active learning activity should include:

Who, Actions, Activities, Resources, Time, and Productivity components. 

Using various teaching styles is the key to successful delivery of the material. It is important that all demonstrations are practiced before the class. A plan B in case demonstrations do not work should also be considered.  

First day of class is the time when the instructor and students learn about each other. It is important that the students know the expertise of the  instructor, also see the human part of their professor. The activity of students introducing themselves allows not only students know about each other, but also the instructor learn their names. 

It's important to be clear when creating goals and objectives, which then will develop in the syllabus or course outline. I learned that a goal should be a road map and objectives should include  details and specifics helping the students know what is expected. 

Paying attention to my own professionalism lays foundation for my students to be professional themselves. Leaving constructive criticism and feedback that helps the students improve is key to being a professional. 

I this module, I learned about some methods that help engage online learners. I usually arrange synchronous sessions (or one-to-one meetings) to go over the assignments and answer any questions the students might have related the weekly assignments. I regularly provide feedback and ask the students to provide feedback about the course, as well.

I leaned how important is it for online learners the establishment of connections between themselves and faculty. Those connections include student-to-student and student-to-instructor interactions. Just a nice “welcome to course” email could be a beginning of the relationships. It sets the tone for the beginning and… >>>

Recognizing learning challenges is very important in teaching process. These challenges include learning disabilities that refer to difficulties to process information.  Also issues with comprehension, application of content, etc. I usually work with student services department where I get help and suggestion on how to accommodate students with disabilities. It is well known that people have different learning styles and if a person has learning disability, it is more imperative that these differences are met and considered during the learning process.  If I get a student with learning disabilities in my class, I try to design instructions in a way… >>>

Being a multilingual person myself, I think it is very important that we encourage students to access their mother tongue when they learn a new language since it helps them to earn easier.  As a matter of fact, being multilingual, helps students to process several languages that helps their brain development.  According to studies from Penn State University. students’ cognitive ability increases due to bilingualism. Language and literacy are interdependent.  Literacy is the ability to use the language. This is something to keep in mind and focus on all students regardless  their linguistic background.

Current events make this portion of the module extremely important.  Recognizing social culture as differences in peoples’ preferences, characteristics and habits is very important in classrooms. Awareness of race differences should be done very carefully since this term minimizes the full potential of students. This is just focusing on external characteristics that has nothing to do with learning process. Creating respectful and inclusive environment should be main goal for instructors. This includes not just how the instructor relate to students but also how the students relate to each other. Intercultural communications are our reality and should be clearly understood by… >>>