Tracy Elmore

It is important to stay abreast of the latest technology as an instructor becuase it can enhance your course as well as your teaching style. Many careers also use a plethora of applications and resources to provide products so allowing students to see the use in the classroom will allow them to understand how they are used in the real world.

I learned that there is value in objectives. Objectives allow the instructor to display the content students will learn. I also learned that there has to be an outcome for the objectives so students know when they have completed the lesson. 

I learned to keep all of my lesson plans throughout my career so I can reference them at a later date. The lesson plans give a ready source of information and ideas for the next time I teach the course. It helps to guide instruction and learning. 

I learned to plan for efficiency of course so that there is a good flow. Giving a pretest to students upon entering the course is a great way to guage their KSA's and develop a plan on movig forward with learning.

Developing lessons plans that are thorough and apply to various teaching styles will ensure successful student engagment. I also learned that there are several lecture styles that appeal to different learners to certain degrees and that some can be combined to deliver education.

I learned various things from this module, one being to provide study guides and study strategies. Thje reason for this is many of our students are adult learners and new to a classroom environment and therefore may need some ideas or additional help to begin a study plan. Additionally, I learned that administering a pretest to establsih a baseline is a great idea. It helps the instruct understand strengths and weaknesses and where everyone is at in their learning of that topic/subject.

I learned through this lesson to develop a good course outline and to think of the core concepts as the trunk of the tree and all the rest of information as the branches. I intend to use this when developing courses and the syllabus.

Stay humble, lead by example and maintain a professioanl appearance and attititude. First impression is a lasting one so remember that upon entering and engaging with students. 

Testing is critical to understand what students have learned and where improvements can be made. While T/F and MC are easy to construct, they do not always assess allow for the instructor to identify areas that the student may be having difficulties understanding. So depending on the type of instruction then the instructor needs to tailor the test to the learning environment such as gathering and organizing info to answer essay questions or objective tests which are more reliable and allow for a broder range of material. 

I have learned that active learning is key in most cases. Acitve learning allows for students to continue to make application of the knowledge and skills they develop duirng learning. I did not realize some of the activites I applied to the classroom in the past were actually part of CAT's but now I do and will continue to use for assessing students learning as well as understanding their learning styles.