The term ‘scaffolding’ comes from the works of Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). The term ‘scaffolding’ was developed as a metaphor to describe the type of assistance offered by a teacher or peer to support learning. In the process of scaffolding, the teacher helps the student master a task or concept that the student is initially unable to grasp independently. The teacher offers assistance with only those skills that are beyond the student’s capability. Of great importance is allowing the student to complete as much of the task as possible, unassisted. The teacher only attempts to help the student with tasks that are just beyond his current capability. Student errors are expected, but, with teacher feedback and prompting, the student is able to achieve the task or goal. When the student takes responsibility for or masters the task, the teacher begins the process of “fading”, or the gradual removal of the scaffolding, which allows the student to work independently. “Scaffolding is actually a bridge used to build upon what students already know to arrive at something they do not know. If scaffolding is properly administered, it will act as an enabler, not as a disabler” (Benson, 1997).
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Scaffolding - Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology - 0 views
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The ‘more knowledgeable other’, or MKO, shares knowledge with the student to bridge the gap between what is known and what is not known. Once the student has expanded his knowledge, the actual developmental level has been expanded and the ZPD has shifted. The ZPD is always changing as the student expands and gains knowledge, so scaffolded instruction must constantly be individualized to address the changing ZPD of each student.
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Teaching versus training - 0 views
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Last term I asked my students to provide feedback on the software engineering course I teach. One student reported that, although he liked the course and appreciated that I'd spent most of my career in the "real world," many times he felt that I was doing corporate training rather than teaching.
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For many years of my business career, it was my responsibility to train clients on the best ways to use the products and services my company sold them. My student's remarks led me to ask myself many questions. Was I really still behaving like a trainer? What assumptions was I making about teaching and my primary responsibility to my students? And fundamentally, what is the difference between teaching and training? In this column I'd like to share my thoughts on these issues and examine how teaching and training are viewed differently in the halls of academia from in corporate boardrooms. Perhaps this will help you think constructively about what your organization values in its employees and what it does to further their professional development.
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each has many alternate definitions, including: To cause to know something To guide the studies of To impart the knowledge of To instruct by precept, example, or experience Definitions for train are: To form by instruction, discipline, or drill To make prepared for a test of skill
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Everything we do in our lives requires a balance between two things or more - a compromise. This column talks about the balance between theory and practice, so it is appropriate to consider that balance with respect to training and teaching. In my January 2004 column, I explained how I am seeking the right blend of theory and practice in my software development courses. My primary job is to prepare students for the rest of their working lives and help them succeed in their careers. So I first have to ensure that they learn fundamental principles and then teach them to use specific tools and techniques as time allows.
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Teaching College Courses Online vs Face-to-Face -- THE Journal - 0 views
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Students are sometimes aggressive and questioning of authority in ways not seen face-to-face
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I wonder if Alex has ever been challenged in the online setting? Politely challenged or hostily?
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both. it is difficult for some more than others when their beliefs are challenged. and change is not easy for anyone. And when one's identity is tied to one's beliefs it gets even more complex. i see all interactrions as an opportunity to learn for everyone involved. I have had angry hostile challenges from students in the past as well as polite challenges. I have also experienced misunderstandings in courses between students and with me. These are teachable moments in my view that provide opportunities for learning. My goal in situations when they arise is to understand, question, explain, and support. i have had students that could not believe that they could completely design a course before it was taught, or that they could teach a course without a lecture. I have had students get very angry about feedback i have given them in discussion. I have had students not believe it was possible for them to do what i asked them to do in the course. I have had students completely misconstrue a comment from me and a student completely misconstrue a review from a classmate. All of these situations challenged me. In one situation i ended up having a private video discussion with the student to clarify. In another, i ended up helping the student question and understand his need for control better, in yet another i was firm and consistent in my response focusing on the instruction rather than taking in personnally, and so on ... i am flexible, understanding, empathetic, and kind, as long as i feel the student is willing to work with me and at least try to meet me half way. I have no problem being direct and have clear boundaries about what is acceptable. I will not tolerate disrespect. And if someone (myself included) cannot even consider the possibility that they have something to learn, then my tolerance and empathy diminishes. significantly. : )
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Teacher as Facilitator - 1 views
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Develop student learning opportunities. This takes into account the course documents, the teacher's personal theories of teaching and learning, the student’s interest, their preferred learning styles and their understanding and skills. It is in this area that the teacher as facilitator is able to provide opportunities for student learning that will take hold of the students' interests and thus motivate them to engage in the learning opportunity. Harrison (1998a & b) has presented the S.P.A.C.E. model for creating optimal learning conditions. The conditions for optimal learning include the following: Self-affimation – the learner’s view themselves as effective learners and the teachers provide them with feedback to that effect; Personal meaning – the learners are able to find personal meaning in the learning. That is, the learning is relevant to them; Active learning - the learners are active in the learning, whether that activity is physically doing something (as for concrete learners) or intellectually doing something (as for abstract reflective learners). Collaborative – the learners are able to collaborate with others in the learning process and not to view learning as an isolating experience; Empowering – the learners are able to shape the learning process, to have control over what is learnt and the direction of the learning.
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The role of the teacher is diverse and has several orientations. One important aspect is that of facilitator of student learning. The facilitator attempts to provide circumstances that will enable students to engage with the learning opportunities and construct for themselves their understandings and skills. This role will interact with those of teacher as learner, colleague and community partner.
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A student’s beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning will interact with a teacher’s beliefs. The teacher therefore needs to understand what students expect and are willing to do as well as what they themselves expect of the students.
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I like this statement. I've never thought of the importance of a dialogue between student's and teacher's idea of teaching and learning.
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so, shoubang... how can an instructor understand what students expect? How will you understand what your students expect? What do you expect of your students and more importantly how will they know what you expect? What mechanisms have i used in this course to achieve both of these ends?
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One mechanism you use, I think, to achieve this is to have all discussion and activity forums be completely open to all in the class. Thus the optimal learning conditions are created by creating open pathways for each person to see ways to deepen their thinking and get more from the course material.
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It is explicit in the expectations and get the most documents of the course what you expect from your students, and how they can succeed, that is important. But how the teacher know what the students expect I think it is more difficult, maybe asking them explicitly, and provide spaces for them to talk between them, to make comments and suggestions.
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Peer Coaching: An Innovation in Teaching - 0 views
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TWO TYPES OF PEER COACHING: THERE'S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE There are two general ways to participate in peer coaching, specific and non-specific. For specific participation, the teacher wants help with certain, pre-determined issues. If they are uncertain about where they most need help, such participants may want to first get videotaped and view the tape critically to help them identify their problem areas. Even teachers who can't get videotaped should try to think about what they would like to improve about their teaching. The peer coaches should pay particular attention to these issues while observing their partner's classes. In non-specific participation, the teacher wants an outsider to come and (1) help determine areas for improvement and/or (2) comment on the teacher's general approach. This form of participation may be ideally suited to experienced teachers who merely want general comments or for those who seeking help in a more general sense. In some ways, non-specific participation is like the "teaching consultants" discussed earlier.
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Peer coaching is an innovation that helps teachers improve their teaching. It is intended to be a mutually reciprocal process where two peers attend each other's classes and help each other enhance and enrich their methods of instruction. Because it is not based in formal evaluations, program participants have reported making more long-lasting changes than those based on more evaluative approaches. Peer coaching is a program that can be implemented in a variety of educational settings from elementary to collegiate levels.
YouTube - feedback1 - 0 views
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My experience in NY - 0 views
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the teacher only has to think creatively and give the students good instructions, he hasn’t have to give them lists of words and definitions that is the most boring part of constructing a course, and a lot of work.
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I love to think that the process of re-conceptualizing a curse to go online can change the way teachers teach this way, and as I learned too, this change is not only for online classes, in face to face too, because it opens their minds, it makes them think and evaluate their old classes, their old evaluations, and most teachers change the way they teach face to face too, because they realize that traditional teaching doesn’t work face to face either. And they don’t change because they have to change, they have an excuse for changing, so online teaching is a catalyst for transforming teachers.
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A lot of students never felt engaged and I have never understood that until now. The kind of activity I used to do was active and contextualized to the world, but not everybody has the same word or interests, so I think the only way to engage everybody is to ask them what they want to learn, or make them choose. Something I have never done is to empower my students to lead their own learning process. I have had problems trusting in them I have never give them freedom to be creative, lead a group, do research, look for something new, let them teach me something. I haven’t tried to get out the outlines, be more risky. I don’t know how it would be not to have the control of their learning process, but I would like to try. I learned a very interesting thing: they can find their own material, they can learn the things they like and are related with their own interests, they can lead a discussion about a topic they like and engage others in the discussion. They are able to do a lot of things and we have to take advantage of that as teachers because, if we do all the work, who is learning?
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So, as I learned form Alex, the question is not “what can I teach online?”, the question is “how can I teach online the thing that I want to teach?”,
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I don’t know if the question is “which students can be good online learners”, the question is “how can I engage most of them and help them to learn” however they are, because we can’t control that.
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That is why I think it is so important to have questions in order to construct our knowledge, so I really understand that to make people think you have to guide them to have questions , not answers. And how to do that? The best way to do that, according to what I read in The role of questioning teaching, thinking and learning, is making the students do things, if they are passive they are not going to have questions, and also, make them good questions that are provocative and makes them think about what they are interested in solve or understand or do, and other kinds of question that lead students to critical thinking.
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I think that in order to achieve a sense of community between your students you have to give them diverse and frequent opportunities for interaction between them and with you, it is not about knowing each other and working in groups in some activity, you have to interact a lot with all your classmates to build a community and feel that you belong to the class. So you have to design diverse activities and spaces for interaction, sharing and communication between students and with you. Also, you have to teach and guide the students in how to interact, how to contribute, how to add knowledge to the conversation, how to give their classmates feedback, how to reinforce their opinions, how to support them, how to answer their questions, how to evaluate them, how to question them, how to agree or refute them, how to make a comfortable climate for learning and a lot of other things related to create a sense of teaching presence and a sense of belonging to the group.
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By teaching to their classmates students can understand more deeply the content, develop other skills like being creative, they have to think deeper in how to explain a concept and create good examples, and learn from their classmates, from their questions and from the interaction between them.
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I like the idea of having a community blog
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I needed a Blog
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sometimes we think the only way of engaging students is entertaining them. That is not true,
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And even better, how Shoubang sounds so familiar and close to the students in the welcome document without anything fancy technology, only text, but it seems so easy to find him in there and so friendly.
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I think that this work is very creative, and as I remember in one of the first reading of this course (”10 ways online…”),
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I don’t know why but I love it! I can review it forever, and I always have new ideas, and I love that.
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some faculty’s opinions is that they feel younger because they feel the same feeling that they felt when they were teaching for the first time, and I think that they feel rewarded by their creation, their new product.
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If I'm talking, you should be taking notes. - 0 views
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, mad
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However, I also have learned that we cannot assume that everyone of a certain age is a digital native. Working at a community college, I have students with a large variety of academic and technological experiences. Some students have very limited access to technology.
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it is concrete, born before me with a structure and a real plan
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I am fully committed to the idea of self-discovery and peer-teaching within my online course, but I also feel that I have a lot to add and I can’t keep all of this information to myself
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The a
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not necessarily because it meets a learning objective
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. The first time I implement something I cannot always anticipate all of the issues, but after a run through I can plan for those problems and be proactive in preventing them.
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. Students will need to find a community setting for 15 hours of either observation of a child, or volunteering in working directly with children
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I am going to give up more control and expect more self-directed learning from my students, not only online, but in my f2f courses too! I am going to put more emphasis on discussion boards than I had previously anticipated.
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I am thinking about what I feel is working for me as a student and what is not, so I can include or not include those things in my course.
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Now my perspective had drastically changed—I am instead asking myself how do I get the students to the information? How will I devise learning activities that will assist them in their search for knowledge and understanding? It is not my responsibility to spoon feed them, but to teach them how to spoon feed themselves.
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conceptualizing some of the activities for my course
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I struggled with this as well. Still not sure if I have enough substantial learning activities for my course. It wasn't until I actually started creating the learning activities that I realized I was rather naive about the entire process. Like you, I had this vague idea. I finally had to sit down and figure out what I wanted my students to be doing and then creating activities that met those objectives.
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Giving up control and trusting students to learn. I don’t need to give them the information, just provide the opportunity for them to discover it for themselves, and trust that they will do it. Everyone says this works, I can’t wait to see it happen!
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Not only has my expectation for online teaching changed, but I also am trying to apply some of these ideas to my f2f courses. I want students to take more responsibility for their learning. I want them to learn from each other, and to discover knowledge instead of waiting for it to be fed to them. I want to build more community into my courses, so students feel that they can share and learn from others and take risks in class. I also want students to learn what they are interested in learning, or what they need to learn depending on where they are in their understanding of the content.
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Authentic On-line Learning - 3 views
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I suppose one of the assumptions that I have about my own on-line course is that if a certain percentage of my students are of the Generation Y population, they may very well know more about the technology than I do.
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20 to 22
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so I guess that will most likely be my audience.
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While I think the technology has to be embedded in instruction whenever possible, it can’t be left to teachers alone to solve this problem.
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I feel teachers need much more support from administrators as well as the Education Department. I know that SED is currently addressing the problem of making technology accessible in our classrooms, but even as they are planning it, the technology is increasing exponentially. It's going to take major educational reform -- Our new commissioner has been personally involved with the Technology task force.
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This is my struggle too. I am spending this weekend stopping in. I do like the post titles, it helps me to priortize what I want to read.
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I think a lot of my difficulty is that my only comparison for online learning are the 2 courses I've taken prior to this. One was okay, the other not so good. So, I'm only realizing now that the online environment and experience can be a lot more robust that I had thought.
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I had to question what the objectives were first, and then create an assessment that tied into the objectives.
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This is probably one area that still scares me. I think I'm going to have to come up with a rubric for the forum in my course, and I don't have any experience creating a rubric. I've Googled it and there are many rubrics out there, but I don't know if I can just "borrow" a rubric and tweak it or is this plagarism?
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what I need to do is think of these posts as mini research papers.
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exactly!!! i actually say "Every post you make in this course is an exam. " in the interaction course info document for the course!! : )
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Now that I realize this, I'm finding the workload a little easier. I had to adjust my schedule. I'm used to doing most of my online work on weekends, but that's not enough for this course, so I made changes. Now I come home from work and put aside about 2 hours each night specificallly for addressing posts.
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I don’t feel like I can get to it all.
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I’m doing my best.
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I decided to give it a try.
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1) Will it help you present content in a more effective or engaging manner, 2) will it facilitate collaboration or interaction between students in an more effective manner, and 3) will it help provide feedback or help assess students more effectively. I feel the blog will get students interacting in a more casual setting regarding the stories, and the Wiki will definitely facilitate collaboration.
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Your assessment of the first 4 weeks is so correct, (in my opinion). I am into the end of the 4th week in an online course I am teaching now and my students are finally soaring, It is soooooo exciting for me to see the growth. The only problem is that my class is only 6 weeks summer....The course I am planning is a 4 week winter term course, so now how to I get my students to soar within one week? My dilemma.
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Wow, 4 weeks is not very long. What kind of class will you be teaching in the winter session? I'm not sure you can push the timeframe of when they begin to soar...that happens when it happens. I guess if you can somehow get them interacting with each other right away, that might help promote discussions that lead to those 'aha' moments.a little quicker.
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I decided not to do winter term...I will no less than 8 week courses...which as an adjunct is a $$$ decision that will hurt. However, I do not believe that 16 courses squeezed into 4 weeks is ethical.
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My Avatar
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off. Luckily, the course unfolded slowly and in a very specific order, and I had time to reflect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete
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flect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it. This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment. It’s also come at a good time, because I’ll be taking my last course in September in order to finish up my degr
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flect, prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it. This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment. It’s also come at a good time, because I’ll be taking my last course in September in order to finish up my degr
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prepare, and digest the information coming at me. I’ve learned that I can take on a rather monumental assignment and with a lot of hard work and perseverance, I can complete it. This was a BIG deal for me and it’s given me a sense of empowerment. It’s also come at a g
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Never in a million years did I ever think that I would go on to graduate school, but here I am on the cusp of that achievement. I am the first out of 6 siblings to earn a master’s degree.
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I didn’t realize that I was in charge of my own learning.
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any kind of learning... online or f2f is ONLY student-centered if that is how it is designed and if that is how the instructor facilitates it... now that you know that you are in charge of your own learning, i need your help : ) You can help me change the world by sharing that insight with anyone you have the opportunity to teach in the future. I have very high expectations of you Donna!!! : )
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I came to realize that I didn’t have to give them all my knowledge — that in fact, I had to let them learn some of these things on their own.
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I think it’s a situation where I don’t know what I need until somebody tells me that I need it. I’m certainly open to suggestions, but at this point I feel like I’ve done what I was supposed to do; however, I realize that this is VERY new to me and that I have probably made some mistakes that will be pointed out to me. That’s fine, and as I said, I welcome comments and suggestions.
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Make thinking visible « MCU Center for Teaching & Learning - 0 views
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Collins, Brown, and Holum suggested we adopt a model of cognitive apprenticeship as a teaching strategy. This model encourages teachers and students to verbalize their thinking in order for the student to recognize gaps and to be brought to a more expert level of thinking.
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Modeling – This method requires the teacher to perform a task and to allow the student to observe and to build a mental model of the processes required to complete that task. Coaching – This method requires the student to perform a task while the teacher provides hints, feedback, and reminders to bring their performance closer to an expert performance. Scaffolding – This method requires the teacher to provide supports for the student to perform the task. As the task is repeated and mastered less supports are provided to the student. Articulation – This method requires the teacher to pull out the student’s problem-solving processes through inquiry or by the student assuming the role of a critic to a set of activities. Reflection – This method requires the student to compare their own problem-solving processes with that of an expert. Exploration – This method requires the teacher to cultivate an environment of problem-solving independent of the expert
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Student success in higher education - 0 views
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Offering early and continual feedback and formative and summative assessment of student progress. In particular, faculty should employ assessment tools that assess students' understanding of course content and learning styles early in the term, and create incentives for students to engage with faculty early and often during the course.
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Ten Steps to Better Student Engagement | Edutopia - 0 views
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A teacher in one of my workshops said, "When my students and I are in the flow, then I don't feel like I have to work as hard." I heartily agree.
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Immediacy in the Classroom - 0 views
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ocial psychologist Albert Mehrabian has been credited with defining the concept of immediacy in terms of his "principle of immediacy," which states "people are drawn toward persons and things they like, evaluate highly, and prefer; and they avoid or move away from things they dislike, evaluate negatively, or do not prefer" (Mehrabian, 1971).
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Verbal Behaviors Calling on students by name Uses terms like "we" and "us" to refer to the class Allows for small talk and out of class conversations Gives feedback to students Asks students how they feel about things Allows students to call him/her by first name
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Student cognitive learning (Chesebro & McCroskey, 2001; Christophel, 1990; Kelley & Gorham, 1988; Titsworth, 2001), though a smaller relationship was found than for affective learning.
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Non-verbal immediacy includes behaviors such as smiling, gesturing, eye contact and having relaxed body language. Verbal immediacy refers to calling the students by name, using humor and encouraging student input and discussion.
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Rubrics - 1 views
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A rubric is an authentic assessment tool used to measure students' work. It is a scoring guide that seeks to evaluate a student's performance based on the sum of a full range of criteria rather than a single numerical score.
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It is a formative type of assessment because it becomes an ongoing part of the whole teaching and learning process.
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contain specific performance characteristics arranged in levels indicating the degree to which a standard has been met (Pickett and Dodge).
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provide the scaffolding necessary to improve the quality of their work and increase their knowledge.
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provide students with more informative feedback about their strengths and areas in need of improvement.
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ON COURSE: The One-Minute Paper - 0 views
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: A “one-minute paper” may be defined as a very short, in-class writing activity (taking one-minute or less to complete) in response to an instructor-posed question, which prompts students to reflect on the day’s lesson and provides the instructor with useful feedback.
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What was the most important concept you learned in class today? Or, “What was the ‘muddiest’ or most confusing concept covered in today’s class?
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more as a student-centered reflection strategy designed to help students discover their own meaning in relation to concepts covered in class, and to build instructor-student rapport
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*What do you think was the most important point or central concept communicated during today’s presentation?
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*What relationship did you see between today’s topic and other topics previously covered in this course?
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Minute papers are a more efficient way to promote writing-across-the curriculum than the traditional term paper.
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HYBRID - Main Page - 0 views
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Welcome to our website which provides faculty development modules related to effective teaching in an online environment. Each module contains a suggested Brief Hybrid Workshop using short, online media presentations; follow-up resources and references; and feedback from users. The Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education has provided a framework for the development of these resources.