Strategies for Engaging Learners in Lectures Discussions
Why is it important to use a variety of instructional methods when working with adult learners? Explain. Describe one instructional method you plan on using in your classroom and why it will be effective.
Reply 1
For effective instruction, it is important to have a wide variety of instruction. Part of that is because all people learn differently. While some students may be auditory learners, others may be better at learning when reading. Because of this, I always prefer to do collaborative learning with the students (Mackh, 2018). This means that students get in groups and work together to achieve a goal. I typically will allow the class to do a jigsaw activity, where each group is responsible for a specific topic and then explaining it to the class. It gives the chance to work in a small group to find the information, while also practice orally presenting the information to their class. When I do this activity with my class, I usually will have multiple choice questions given to each group in order to guide their oral presentations of the information. I then provide an anchor chart where they will fill out information that is given to them by the respective groups. This furthers the collaboration with my students and helps to build their relationships in a very organic way. It also helps them prepare for future collaborations and group projects. I end the lesson with an exit ticket in which they will individually discuss something they learned from the group work from a DIFFERENT group than their own. This is to ensure they are understanding one another and asking questions if they are confused. Part of this is holding the students accountable for their own education and ensuring they are responsible.
Reference:
Mackh, B. M. (2018). Higher education by design: Best practices for curricular planning and instruction. Routledge. ISBN-13: 9781351133715
Discission post 2
Suppose you are an instructor at a local community college. When reviewing the results of your last formative assessment, you noticed that more than half of the class of students failed to achieve mastery of the objectives. Discuss how you would find out if the issue could be traced back to a poorly designed assessment, or a need to reteach the content being assessed.
Reply 2 due by 2-9 by 9pm AZ time
Formative assessments are important because they are used as a way to track how the student is progressing. These assessments are not given point values that could affect a student’s overall grade. After giving a formative assessment, an instructor needs to take the time to analyze the data collected. Once the data has been reviewed, an instructor can use it to provide feedback to the student. The student will then understand where they are and where they need to be to achieve mastery of the skill (Grand Canyon University). If I were giving an assessment and the majority failed, I would need to see where the students struggled. Did they all struggle on the same question or concept? If so, was the question worded in a way that could be confusing? From there I would decide if I need to reteach the concept in a different way or if I need to reword the assessment. The instructor would not have to reteach everything to the entire class. They can set up small groups. While one group of students are working on a different assignment, the instructor can be working with a different small group reteaching the concept. This time can also be used to gather feedback from students on how the instructor is teaching and if there are any modifications that might need to be made moving forward.
References:
Grand Canyon University. (n.d.). Formative assessment. Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching. https://cirt.gcu.edu/teaching/tips/formativeassess
Discussion 1 week 2 due 2-10 by 9pm AZ time
We know that even in higher education, few students learn much by listening to endless lecturing, but sometimes lecturing is the best way to deliver information. What are some strategies that could be used to engage students and make lectures interactive? Provide specific examples.
Reply one due on 2-11 by 9pm AZ time
When it comes to lectures it is a good idea to use technology that relates to what you are lecturing about. Use multimedia, visual aids, audio clips, or other means of adding interesting content to your lecture (Mackh, 2018). For example PowerPoints is a good tool that engages students with during lectures. PowerPoint slide shows utilized in lectures can give a construction to the learners to follow (framework) and in that sense help with discernment. They can print out gifts pages and compose notes close to each slide as the talk advances. Utilizing PowerPoint introductions might energize learners and work on their accomplishment. It might improve advancing by giving a superior agreement and appreciation of the subjects as well as by giving various strategies, ways, and methods inside a similar slide. This assortment of procedures inside a similar slide like adding pictures, sounds, shadings, and movements could join a wide range of students (sensation, hear-able, and visual) and allow them all the opportunity to be dynamic students and raise their advantage in learning.
Reference
Mackh, B. M. (2018). Higher education by design. Taylor and Francis.
What are the benefits of having adult learners work collaboratively on projects and assignments in a higher education classroom? What are the challenges? How could you overcome these challenges? How can you implement collaborative work in the online classroom?
Reply 2 due tonight 2-15 by 9pm AZ time
In an undergrade course the use of group projects or collaborative learning is beneficial as it instils skills that are needed to work as a team, which are needed in the workplace, it builds community in the classroom, and a better understanding of the material and subject matter. According to Colleges of Distinction, “Ultimately, by working cooperatively on projects, students get to know each other, learn how to communicate, and hold each other accountable, and become more invested in the outcomes of their education. Because many collaborative academic projects require more in-depth investigation of an issue, students may also develop a greater mastery of the subject and retain that information long after the course itself has concluded.” ( Colleges of Distinction 2022)
The main challenge with collaborative learning is the “by-in,” since not all students want to participate in these types of activities for assorted reasons, i.e., don’t want their grade lowered due to an unproductive group, do not have the time to commit to a group project, or the vast differences and technology abilities of students in each class. Depending on the make-up of the class, it would dictate the type and how many collaborative assignments that would be assigned. I would also wait until the class had a sense of community before I would assign a project that the students would need to collaborate on outside of the class. The collaborative learning with an online course would be limited as it would be difficult since there is a lack of a sense of community online. It would most likely be best to limit the collaborate learning to communication posts and peer reviews.
Reference
Colleges of Distinction. (2022) Collaborative projects and assignments: Learn more effectively in a collaborative classroom. https://collegesofdistinction.com/advice/collaborative-projects-and-assignments-learn-more-effectively-in-a-collaborative-classroom/#:~:text=How%20Does%20Collaboration%20Improve%20Student,thinking%20and%20problem%2Dsolving%20abilities.
Reply 3 Due 2-16 by 9pm AZ time
When Adult learners work collaboratively, they share lived experiences that may be valuable for everyone working in the group. Also, with the rise in technology afflicting the adult learner, they get a chance to learn how to better navigate this technology by working with other who have more experience (Merriam, Baumgartner, 2020). In short collaborative learning helps everyone learn from each other, it creates a support group, of sorts, so that there is more availability of getting issues resolved.
The challenges are some that I have experienced in my higher education adventure. I have been told by someone, that it is easy for me just to do the work (we were making a comparative graph) so I will do it and we will all get a good grade. So, there is some stubbornness. I have been told I will not help, because you still want this done and you want a good grade so you will finish it anyway, what’s the point? So, laziness. I have been told I do not believe in collaborative work, because ultimately one person does more work, and everyone benefits, which is not right. Not sure the challenging descriptor there. I have been told by a perspective employer that collaborative work in modern college lessens what I should have learned. He said I didn’t earn my degree fully because someone else did some of the work he associated to me getting a degree. I would have to say that I have had some interesting involvement with adults and collaborative learning ideologies. The odd thing is that most jobs I have had, required collaboration. Even at the lowest levels of employment, the issues I just described existed. It as if people actively do not want to work together, even though biologically humans need a group.
Online collaboration is the most difficult, I think. When I did hybrid college, we had a building that was central, we planned and met up to get some specifics of the assignment down. Now, I do not think if this course required collaboration, we could all meet in the GCU library, as it would be rather expensive. I think that this is one of the failures of the online collaboration, there is not really a safe way for students to group meet online, there wasn’t, with COVID, resources such as TEAMS and online meeting places have come a long way, Id bet they would work for this, but the college should provide a server for this, like they provide a library if we were close enough. I think that the issue is a bigger programming issue than an individual educator can plan for. It reminds me of another challenge most adult learners are doing school when they can, so being able to meet at the same time would be tough.
I do believe that a simple fix could be smaller discussion groups. Instead of having everyone on one message board, and every student picking random people to respond to, the students could be in smaller groups and then respond to one another, furthering the conversation past cursory and simple secondary statements. These things must be planed into the lesson and described in the syllabus. (CTE, 2022) Secondly, I think that when the school provided office and its tools that it creates sharable documents that a professor can see who added what. Making a collaborative PowerPoint allows for the creative engagement (Sull,2017) of each student, and fair grading because the professor can see who did what. It takes away from the single-minded mentalities of some adults.
Centre for Teaching Excellence. (2022)“Lesson Planning in 6 Steps.” Bright Classroom Ideas, https://www.brightclassroomideas.com/lesson-planning-six-steps/
Merriam, S. B., and. Baumgartner L. M. (2020). Learning in Adulthood: A Comprehensive Guide, Fourth Edition. 4th ed., JOHN WILEY & Sons, Pgs. 5-25.
Sull, E. C. (2017). Putting the round peg into the square hole of online learning: Inserting creativity, weirdness, and unusualness-while keeping a sense of consistency. Distance Learning, 14(3), 64-67. Retrieved from https://lopes.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/putting-round-peg-into-square-hole-online/docview/2014336219/se-2?accountid=7374
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