Get Your Students Hired
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Your First Year as a CTE Teacher (Part 2) --> Instructional Alignment
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
Curriculum needs to stay up to date to ensure that our students receive the most relevant and practice information about the field they are going into.
I like the asking students to participate in learning objectives, leaving room for them to help the lessons grow in a way that helps engage them.
It is good to have a plan for a lesson, module, and semester so that concepts can be used as building blocks for student growth and learning.
Objectives and learning assessments are the keys to integrating progressive learning experiences. The CTE students need progressive guidance and assessment to assess their growing skills and knowledge.
Seeking students to participate in creating learning objectives is very effective to get them engaged and motivated
Having a plan is good for Instruction, but being able to break out and really detail the important items will help our students excel.
As a CTE I haven't talked with other teachers about aligning standards horizontally or vertically. This is something I would like to look more into.
This module provided a reminder about the importance of setting goals, objectives, and outcomes and how to write them. I also liked the inclusion of Bloom's Taxonomy and the three domains of learning: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. I really like the idea of using rubrics and scoring guides to assess student skills in various categories. I would like to incorporate this as well as add in self and teacher reflections as part of the learning process.
Soft skills are very undervalued! When talking about concepts I try to tie them to real work examples that I have seen. I also ask them to reflect on their experience home, school, work, etc. where they may have seen this. I think reflection is key to encourage them to identify the concept with what they may have already experienced.
Having the student state their goals for the class on the first day is genius! Then you can review these on the last day of class.
Planning is a critical part of my daily classroom routine but I don't need to micro plan everything.
Key Learnings:
Alignment of Objectives and Outcomes:
Ensuring course objectives match industry standards and certifications.
Designing lessons that prepare students to meet both academic and practical skill outcomes.
Importance of Clear Expectations:
Setting clear, measurable objectives that align with assessments.
Communicating these objectives to students at the start of a course or training session.
Role of Assessments:
Creating assessments that accurately measure the skills and knowledge outlined in the objectives.
Using formative and summative assessments to guide both teaching and student learning.
Continuous Improvement:
Gathering feedback from students and industry to refine curriculum and teaching methods.
Incorporating real-world scenarios and hands-on training to bridge the gap between classroom learning and job performance.
I have learned the difference between goals or course outcomes and objectives. The big picture is the course outcome the roadmap to that is the objectives outlined for the course.
I feel employability skills are incredibly important in the CTE program. We are preparing students to leave our classes and head out into the workplace. They should not only have the knowledge and skills to complete tasks, but they need to know how to perform in a professional manner at all times. I also find it important that what we teach in CTE aligns with what is being taught post-secondary so we give students a step ahead when they head off to college.
I learned that in order to teach something you have to not only know how but why each step is done. Also a good way to asses if a student has learned a new skill is if they can "teach it" or fully describe it back to me. Minus the physically doing the skill part that is.