R/D11

Cindy Thelen
R/D11

As I read through this chapter and reflected on our other readings I saw three areas that I could develop and improve that would have a significant effect on my teaching strategies. I also saw several strengths that I use in preparing for instruction.

I am good at organizing and planning goals and outcomes for the year. The organization I work for encourages us to be ‘living textbooks’ and to work at making our presentation relate to our students’ lives. We are always reminded to not rely on the textbook, because textbooks are usually so boring! I also enjoy giving enthusiastic and different presentations to my classes. Because I teach history I feel I have a good handle on using inquiry to promote learning. We spend time debating (informally) and discussion all sorts of controversial historical/political events and topics.

Using table 27.5 on page 275-276, I believe the three most important competencies I need to develop are:
1. Stimulate and sustain learner motivation.
2. Using media and technology to enhance learning and performance.
3. Evaluate instructional effectiveness.

Although I am fairly good at maintaining my students’ interests during class, I have not delved into developing effective ways to sustaining motivation outside of class. At Teenworks, the homeschool organization I work for, I only see my students once a week for 1.5 hours. The other days they are at home completing assignments found in the syllabus. I have found several ideas that the students have enjoyed working on: creating a poster board that is a road map to the Civil War (describing some of the events that lead to the war), choosing an explorer and creating a travel brochure of their “new world” discoveries, and others. I think I need to look for more “discovery” type of assignments that get their brains focused and their creative juices flowing.

I have effectively used some media (CDs and DVDs) in my classroom to enhance learning. However, I have not developed many assignments that would have them using a computer, and all my students have computers at home, so it is definitely something that I should incorporate. I have told them to research a certain topic on the internet, but I think using a WebQuest would prevent a lot of needless searching of boring website! My goal is to develop a couple of WebQuest for each class so they discover part of the material for a particular topic. I really think this is a tool my students would enjoy using.

The last area I want to build on is evaluating my instructional effectiveness. Frequently, at the end of a class I will put a star beside a particular part of the lesson that went really well and I will make a note to myself when something didn’t work. This helps me prepare for the following year, but I still believe there are other things I could be doing to evaluate my role. I found rubric online that I plan on using periodically so I can assess the effectiveness of different teaching strategies I use in class. I hope addressing these three issues will increase my students’ performance.