Laurie Haj Ashab

My philosophy is to remove the desk from the classroom. Get up on your feet and circulate. It is amazing how a shy or quiet student will ask questions if they see you are visible and up and moving around to help them. In the past, I have had veteran teachers ask me how I maintained such an engaged group of students while I was teaching. I told them that I never sit down, I am moving around the room while lecturing, and I stand in the back of the room while they are taking exams. For my online teaching,… >>>

I teach and have taught many computer courses. Even though it is very time consuming, I always create a Rubric to grade a specific assignment in courses like Excel, Word, or Access. By creating a Rubric, it allows me to be fair to all students. I would not look at an assignment and just say, "Oh, that looks good or nice" and assign a grade. I think it is important for each student to receive a fair grade and feedback on their work. This also plays an important role in Assessment data that may be needed for future statistics or… >>>

We have taken many classes and continue to be life-long learners. The most important thing when asking a question to me is the tone of the voice of the Instructor and having the Instructor pay attention while I am asking a question and answering. This applies to answering e-mails or posting discussion questions too. I avoid keying in All Capitals or using the Exclamation point. I sometimes use the Exclamation point if I respond to a statement like "Very Good!" If I was in a live class, then I am enthusiastic when replying even if the question was not the… >>>

In this section, one thing brought me back to my earlier years of being in school. I can still remember the teachers who paid attention to me as I was talking and the ones who were doing things while I was talking like shuffling through papers or not making eye contact. I guess this did make an impact on how I teach. It is good to learn from things that have happened to each of us so that we will not do things like this to our students. Something simple like putting our hands on your hips or crossing your… >>>

For myself, getting to know my students' names the first day is so important. Of course, it will depend on the size of the class. In a live class setting, I usually have 25 students or less. I am sure I would find a way to figure out how to learn the names no matter the size of the course that I would be teaching. If it was an extremely large class, I would study my class roster before going to class. I believe this would be half the battle. I try and put myself in the shoes of the… >>>

When teaching live courses, I always check out the room, equipment, and room temperature before the first class meeting. I make sure that I arrive in the class early the first meeting to make sure things are fine too. The biggest frustration that I have witnessed in computer courses is when equipment needs to be repaired and there are not enough computers if there is a computer out of order. I encourage the students to bring their own laptops to class. This not only helps with breakdowns, but it lets them continue working on their own computer between home, work,… >>>