Meta-Reflection: Instructional Strategies

There are many instructional strategies designed to help foster students well being and academic achievement. These strategies fall under four main categories; Information-Processing, Social Models, Personal Models, and Behavioral Systems Information Processing helps students acquire and organize knowledge, discover problems and formulate solutions to them. Students can do this using many different strategies. Inductive thinking [...]

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Believing – its a good thing! EDU 6526 week 8

Believing in students and helping them believe in themselves “If you think you are beaten, you are.
 If you think you dare not, you don’t. If you’d like to win but think you can’t,
 It’s almost certain you won’t. Life’s battles don’t always go To the stronger or faster man, But sooner or later, the [...]

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A place to learn – week 7

First Impressions can be lasting impressions. At the beginning of the school year every teacher in every class has the opportunity to set the stage for that years learning. In today’s society of intense visual stimulation, many students may indeed judge the “book by the cover” and the classroom by what is inside. Making your [...]

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The value of learning values – Instructional Strategies week 6

The world’s knowledge base is expanding rapidly. Each year there is more and more that must be taught in public and private schools. But of all the things we teach in a classroom, if it is not taught in a context that constantly emphasizes the importance of citizenship all the knowledge in the world will [...]

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Making the connection – week 4 EDU 6526

It is much easier to do a task that interests you than one that does not. If you are working on something that is not a part of your life, chances are you are thinking about the things that have meaning in your life while trying to trudge on and complete the task. Most likely [...]

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Its all in the preparation – week 3 EDU 6526

There are many ways, and many books written about creating an interesting, engaging, interactive and memorable lesson. You can bring in speakers, to be thought provoking experts on a particular topic. You can visit museums, parks, or historical places. Traditional teaching methods too, have their place in helping students to learn but, unless the student [...]

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A tool for concept attainment

Thinking maps are tools for learning. Thinking maps use a specific graphic representation of a map linked to a thought process to help students learn critical thinking skills. Albert Upton in Design for Thinking, “a theoretical text defining fundamental thinking processes based on semantics, cognitive psychology and problem solving” set the base toward Thinking maps [...]

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Its all relevant – week 1,2 EDU 6526 Strategies

There are many different types of instructional strategies to help engage students and connect subjects through a common theme. Our theme this quarter is going to be following Columbus’s discoveries and Bartoleome’ de las Casas journey to the America’s and the effect it had on native American people. It was amazing to me to see [...]

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