Jacqueline Turnage-Ferber

One technique that I use to encourage students to answer questions is the Think - Pair - Share strategy. I will ask a well formulated questions related to the "Learning Objectives for Today" (also known as the LOFT); the LOFT is always posted on the board and given to students in hard copy. After asking the question, I give students 30 seconds to 1 minute to jot down their thoughts and ideas. Then, I instruct students to tell the person sitting next to them what they think, and I allow 30 seconds to 1 minute. After a minute, I then… >>>

I teach four hour blocks at a health care trade school. This is really a challenge, especially when you consider that an adult's attention span is under eighteen minutes. As a result, I really try to focus on designing lesson plans that consider learning styles and that build in a lot of active learning strategies. For adult learners, connecting the learning to their future career path and building in active learning that incorporates learning styles is critical. Often, I view myself as a facilitator more than as an instructor. I facilitate mastery learning using research on learning styles and active… >>>

I just made a student mistake. I was reading quickly Quiz #2, and kept missing one question. The green would highlight the correct answer, but in my rush, I did not realize that the answer wanted you to check all that applied. I was getting more and more frustrated because the overachiever in me would not accept less than a 100 percent on the quiz. Finally, I figured out the mistake I was making. This reminds me of how frustrated students must feel! This was probably the most inmportant thing I learned in the second module of ED101. Frustrated students… >>>

I try to incorporate ice breaker activities into my first day lesson plan. Usually, I spend a lot of time introducing the class, the course objectives, grading criteria (i.e. the syllabus). Then, I do one or more ice breaker activities. I have many in my teaching bag of tricks, but I am always looking for new ideas. What are some of the ice breaker activities that you have effectively used? What makes an ice breaker activity worthwhile? Is the goal merely to get students to interact and establish classroom climate / rapport? Do activities have to be tied to the… >>>