iTeach First Year Group

Group1
Originally uploaded by SWarner.

Here is the first group of iTeach course developers

students as teaching agents

My teaching is changing comes from younger students being visual learners, meaning they don't think in linear fashion. My more traditional or older students are text-based learners and very linear. I set things up so I can get out of the way and let them learn. I am adjusting my teaching to that.

Activity Matrix

A few years back, Stephen created a matrix of how people in courses can communicate with each other, which was helpful for me in creating a cafeteria menu of tools to incorporate into my teaching experience. I am not sure how the new tools, such as Eluminate and voice annotation, will help me create new opportunities for paths for communicating.

Preparing for the future...

If we do not learn to use the tools we will not be prepared to use them. There will always be a chicken egg process, but we need to learn and test and apply when appropriate. It really is a both and process.
Steve

Welcome

Greetings.
Have some thoughts you'd like to share on the signs and measures of effective teaching? Read something stimulating on this topic lately, something you can't stop thinking about? Have strong thoughts on how you like to learn and how you learn best? Been mulling over how you might amplify the good results of your efforts to share or transfer knowledge? Here's a place to post your thoughts, provoke the thoughts of others....welcome to the discourse.

Hors d'oeuvre: What makes teaching "effective"?

For starters:
How about a comment on what "effective" teaching actually means? How can effectiveness be measured? How can the results of measuring teaching effectiveness be used to amplify positive outcomes in subsequent efforts?

Entree: Assessments and what to measure?

What are the best measures of learning success? How might real understanding be measured? Is it important to evaluate, beyond factual recall, improvements in critical thinking skills? How should that be measured?

Main Course: Strategies and Methods for "building up" learning

Examples from practice?

Desserts: Anyone? And more for you....

Other thoughts, other directions?

PS: If you enjoyed participating in this blog and would like to set up one for your own edification, feel free to visit Chris Lott's "Weblogs in Education" page on our CDE Distance Learning Systems site at the link above. HINT: Look for the link to the "Getting Started with Blogger Step-by-Step Tutorial"
More on Blogs

Au revoir!
Susan Warner
susan.warner@uaf.edu
Distance Learning Systems
Center for Distance Education
University of Alaska Fairbanks

Good teaching

If we can create an alteration in the way that students think and that translates into productive actions, success comes in changes in behavior.