Bloom's Taxonomy
Website: The Centre for Teaching & Learning URL: http://www.humber.ca/centreforteachingandlearning/instructional-strategies/teaching-methods/course-development-tools/blooms-taxonomy.html
The Centre for Teaching & Learning website by Humber provides vast amount of information about different course developmental tools that are available for the educators. The section on Bloom’s Taxonomy provides links to various resources such as articles, summary charts of three domains, and related videos. This website will help me improve my instruction skills because it provides great examples of how each levels within the three domains of the taxonomy (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) can be evaluated when designing a curriculum. For example, within the cognitive domain, proving a multiple-choice test will measure whether the learner has mastered the “knowledge” level.
Characteristics of Adult Learners
Website: Learning and Teaching
URL : http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/
This website is great for newer teachers whose students are primarily adults. It includes a well laid-out tree diagram that contains different learning theories and provides broad overview of the concept of learning. Moreover, each subject in the realm of adult education is summarized without including too much detail. If I want to learn more about a specific topic, the website directs me to another page that includes more details. In addition, it provides relevant references for further reading. This website was very useful for me because it is like a one stop shop for adult education. It will also be a great refresher going forward.
Creating a Positive Learning Environment
Website: Manage Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom
URL: http://adulted.about.com/od/teachers/a/disruptions.htm
Even for the adult educators, we sometimes need to deal with disruptive behaviours in classrooms. This website, Manage Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom, provides tips and guides on maintaining positive learning environment in the classrooms. The section on dealing with disruptions caused by the participants reminded me of a recent training session where one of the participants kept checking her BlackBerry. The site provides great suggestions on what I could have done to minimize the disruption in these situations. Moreover, it provides solutions for different levels of disruption behaviours. This website will certainly prove to be useful for managing my classrooms, regardless of how mild or persistence the disruptions are.
Assessment
Website: Student Assessment
URL: http://learndat.tech.msu.edu/teach/student-assessment
At my current workplace, we recently implemented pre and post assessments for all of our product knowledge courses. Same set of 10 or so multiple-choice and true or false type of questions would be sent to the participants before and after the courses. Currently, the primary purpose of doing these assessments is to collect the data for reporting purposes. As we start to better analyze the data (ie. to determine which topics to focus during the training session), this website provides different techniques to utilize in different types of assessments. For example, it suggests that each of the questions should contain informative feedback in addition to the correct answer.
Media (possible considerations)
Article: Multimodal Learning Through Media: What the Research Says
URL: http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf
One of the most popular myths about learning is that we only remember 10% of what we read, whereas we remember 50% of what we see and hear. Do we really? This article reviews various research and studies relating to the effectiveness of multimodal learning. It also briefly summarizes different principles relating to learning using multimedia. These are helpful for educators who are considering implementing media into their classrooms or lectures. Consider Multimedia Principle as an example. It states that presentation slides containing words and pictures works better for learners’ retention rather than slides with words only. The article also attempts to debunk false statistical data such as the myth that was mentioned above.
Website: The Centre for Teaching & Learning URL: http://www.humber.ca/centreforteachingandlearning/instructional-strategies/teaching-methods/course-development-tools/blooms-taxonomy.html
The Centre for Teaching & Learning website by Humber provides vast amount of information about different course developmental tools that are available for the educators. The section on Bloom’s Taxonomy provides links to various resources such as articles, summary charts of three domains, and related videos. This website will help me improve my instruction skills because it provides great examples of how each levels within the three domains of the taxonomy (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor) can be evaluated when designing a curriculum. For example, within the cognitive domain, proving a multiple-choice test will measure whether the learner has mastered the “knowledge” level.
Characteristics of Adult Learners
Website: Learning and Teaching
URL : http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/
This website is great for newer teachers whose students are primarily adults. It includes a well laid-out tree diagram that contains different learning theories and provides broad overview of the concept of learning. Moreover, each subject in the realm of adult education is summarized without including too much detail. If I want to learn more about a specific topic, the website directs me to another page that includes more details. In addition, it provides relevant references for further reading. This website was very useful for me because it is like a one stop shop for adult education. It will also be a great refresher going forward.
Creating a Positive Learning Environment
Website: Manage Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom
URL: http://adulted.about.com/od/teachers/a/disruptions.htm
Even for the adult educators, we sometimes need to deal with disruptive behaviours in classrooms. This website, Manage Disruptive Behavior in the Classroom, provides tips and guides on maintaining positive learning environment in the classrooms. The section on dealing with disruptions caused by the participants reminded me of a recent training session where one of the participants kept checking her BlackBerry. The site provides great suggestions on what I could have done to minimize the disruption in these situations. Moreover, it provides solutions for different levels of disruption behaviours. This website will certainly prove to be useful for managing my classrooms, regardless of how mild or persistence the disruptions are.
Assessment
Website: Student Assessment
URL: http://learndat.tech.msu.edu/teach/student-assessment
At my current workplace, we recently implemented pre and post assessments for all of our product knowledge courses. Same set of 10 or so multiple-choice and true or false type of questions would be sent to the participants before and after the courses. Currently, the primary purpose of doing these assessments is to collect the data for reporting purposes. As we start to better analyze the data (ie. to determine which topics to focus during the training session), this website provides different techniques to utilize in different types of assessments. For example, it suggests that each of the questions should contain informative feedback in addition to the correct answer.
Media (possible considerations)
Article: Multimodal Learning Through Media: What the Research Says
URL: http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf
One of the most popular myths about learning is that we only remember 10% of what we read, whereas we remember 50% of what we see and hear. Do we really? This article reviews various research and studies relating to the effectiveness of multimodal learning. It also briefly summarizes different principles relating to learning using multimedia. These are helpful for educators who are considering implementing media into their classrooms or lectures. Consider Multimedia Principle as an example. It states that presentation slides containing words and pictures works better for learners’ retention rather than slides with words only. The article also attempts to debunk false statistical data such as the myth that was mentioned above.