Teaching Reflection / Midterm Evaluation (Week 8)

Here's the summary of the W200 mid-term evaluation. Students did a survey and showed their preference and opinions regarding the course and their instructor.

Class
Like/Meaningful	Dislike/Pointless
·     Digital story *4 - challenging, but learned different technology tools ·     Hands on activities & TIPs *4 (learned new tech. resources & how to use them) ·     Case analysis project *2 – how to look for different resources to solve problems in future classroom ·     Class prep *2 ·     Group/Class discussion*2 ·     Google *2 (thinking about using it in future classroom) ·     Spice You Up activity *2 ·     Teacher website & e-porfolio ·     Diigo (started to use for different classes) ·     Webquest	·     Digital story *3 – time consuming, should have more instruction on how to make a video in class ·     Lecture/PPT *3 – too much information; rather do hands on activities ·     Too many assignments due at once *3 ·     Class prep *2 – spend lots of time, but not talked a lot about it in class; spend too much time talking about CP in class ·     GoAnimate *2 – not suitable for higher grade level students ·     Inspiration – not meaningful ·     Teacher website – pointless ·     Class is too long ·     Class discussion ·     TIPs – helpful for understanding course content, but not useful
Instructor
Strength	Weakness/Students’ needs
·     Helpful to solve problems *5 ·     Explain clearly what to do and where to find resources *4 ·     Funny *3 ·     Keep students engaged *3 – ask questions ·     Make sure students understand *2 ·     Knowledge - go through information in depth *2 ·     Connection with students *2 ·     Nice/friendly/approachable/positive ·     Give individualized feedback ·     Give time for questions	·     Give more time for the TIPs in class *3 ·     Unclear about the due date and submission *2 ·     Communication – hard to understand my comments ·     Talk louder

Link to Evaluation Response PDF file

After looking at my evaluation results, in general, I think there's still a lot to be improved in my teaching. In terms of the course structure, content, and assignments, I don't think I can do much adjustment to satisfy every student. Looking at the results, it's obviously some students like a specific topic the most, yet some other students might dislike the same topic the most. Lots of other AIs told me it's not possible to make everyone happy, but I think what I can do is to try my best to at least explain clearly to student why we include such content and tasks for what purpose. I think it would actually be a good opportunity to take this as an example for students to think about what they would do in their future classroom if their students have wide range of interests or preference on their learning. A lot of students actually gave comments that they did learn a lot from this course. One student even started using Diigo as a public library for several other classes. I guess probably I told them almost every week that how Diigo helps me as a teacher and learner. I'm really glad that lots of students have really learned something from this class and this would definitely help me grow my confidence and motivation in teaching.

In terms of my teaching, I greatly appreciate that my students could really tell me "the truth" whether they understand what I was talking about and how they feel about they way I teach. I've tried hard to build a good relationship with my students and give them the image and impression that they can be very comfortable to ask any questions or talk to me about any issues they have. At the beginning of the class, I realize that a lot of my students in this class do not have proficient technology skills and some of them were even worried about they were not skillful enough to complete their projects. Although I spent a lot of time in class teaching them solving their technology problems when they were doing activities, I think it definitely worth the time doing that cause students would be more confident and motivated in their learning.

I think it's a good sign that students think I'm helpful to solve their problems. However, I am thinking probably I should change my strategy a bit and give them less detail guidance while helping them solve their problems. The reason is that they kind of get used to getting any kinds of help from me. Since we have already gone through half of the course, I feel the skill of looking for solutions is more important for them to learn. In order to let them be an independent problem solver, what I would do is to provide them different resources or telling them the right direct to go, and then let them explore different ways to solve their problems instead of giving step by step instruction. But of course if I know a student who really needs lots of help, I would still give a full guidance and explanation.

Regarding the time distribution for lecture and activities, I was aware that students need more time to do tasks in class, and I did leave more time for them to do hands on activities. However, it seemed they still need even more time. I think I sometime really spent too much time giving examples and having class discussion, but it is the way for me to make sure they really do understand the concepts I want them to learn. From the evaluation results, some students said that they learned the most from the class discussion and the examples from other students, whereas some other students think it's boring and unnecessary to spend time on discussion. This is a real dilemma. Probably I need to talk to other experienced AIs and figure out the best way to solve this problem.

Teaching Reflection (FA13 Week 5)

This week, I'm glad that my students and I had lots of discussion this week about their digital story project as well as why and how they are by to do their case analysis project. Last time, I got my mentor's feedback that each step of my ULA's demo was too quick so that lot of my students could not follow, which caused students more confusion. Before I let me ULA do other demos, I tried to demo by myself this week and slow down the pace. My strategy was: wait until everyone get to this step that I was doing, and then go to the next step. Although it seemed to have longer waiting time in each step, but every student have more time to process where to go and how to do the steps. And the most important thing is, I would need to demo once rather than many times with many different problems and questions students had during the whole demo process. In the demo process, I also found that while some advanced students were waiting for my next step, they would volunteer to help other students who did not quite follow. A lot of times I was thinking about how much detail instruction I need to provide my students in class. When I was observing Matt's class, he always emphasizes the importance of learning and solving problems independently. I understand that most of my students were freshmen and would want lots of support from their instructor, however, I agree with Matt that students need to learn how to learn and find solutions to their problems by their own. I have not found the appropriate instruction for this issue yet, but I will need to talk to more experienced instructors to figure out what is the best way for me to do for my students.

Teaching Reflection (FA13 Week 4)

After teaching today, I just could not stop thinking about a few questions about teaching and learning. I wonder why sometimes I asked students whether they had any questions or difficulties doing tasks such as insert an image or embed a video on their teachers websites after I did the demonstration, they would shake their heads and act like they understand everything I teach, however, I usually could find some problems from the assignments they submit. Was it because I provide too much information at one time so that they could not process through what they have learned and figured out what kinds of difficulties and challenges they had? Was it because they did not even know what their problems were in class so they did not know what to ask and how to ask questions? Or, do they really not understand what I was doing and talking about in class? I think I have tried to slow down the pace of my instruction in class and tried to use different ways to check their understanding of the course content. However, I don't think I have figured out what is the best way for me to ameliorate this kind of situation that I encounter. I will keep searching for the best solution for this issue.

Another question for myself is: From the standpoint of students, what does "good teacher" mean? Do high-achieving students and lower-achieving students have different definition of good teachers? If I were sitting down there as one of the w200 students, what would I expect my teacher do in class? Thinking of my own learning experiences back to college, I was not one of the top students, but just average. When I was in class, I did not really think about whether the topics were interesting enough to make me engaged in class, but whether teachers could deliver the course content in the simplest way for me to understand and how the content could relate to my self experiences. Although I am not sure about how my students think about my instruction, I have a feeling that each student wants me to notice what they need and wants me to help them with every kind of issues and challenges they have, especially for those students who do not speak often. This is actually one of my goals in this class that I want my students can feel my passion in interacting with them and trying to give as much support as I can no matter who they are. I want to create a learning environment in my class where students feel comfortable and not be afraid of asking questions and sharing their own thoughts.

Spice You Up activity in week 4.

Here is the feedback from my W200 mentor, Ya-Huei Lu.

Teaching Reflection (FA13 Week 1-3)

Teaching

After the first three weeks of teaching in w200, I felt my classroom atmosphere has been getting so much better than the first week because I feel more comfortable to talk in the classroom and students are getting more involved in what we are doing in class. Also, some students gave me the feedback saying that they feel more comfortable in this class when we slow down a bit, cause they would know more about what they should do and how they can complete tasks. Therefore, I realized that most of the time, I would always need to talk about new concepts, new skills, and new requirements AGAIN and AGAIN until they started thinking I was funny and a little bit annoying by asking questions or telling them the same things so many times. Another strategy I used this week in class when I want to check whether students remember what I said or understand the new information, I would pretend I was one of their students to ask them questions and waiting for their answers. Some of them would give a summary of what they learned today or something like what different kinds of sources they could use if they encountered any problems. I think it's helpful for me and for my students to have some time wrap up the main points in the end of each class.

Activity

I'm really glad that I have opportunity to do the observation in Matt's class before I teach every week. One of my biggest concerns for my teaching is the time management in how much time to spend lecturing and letting students have discussion, hands-on activities, and the technology integration practice in class. Therefore, it helps a lot when I can roughly estimate how much time Matt spent on each part of a lesson and have an idea about what kinds of problems or issues that students might have for different activities. Additionally, when I observe Matt's class, I would come up with some other ideas that I would like to try in my class. For instance, using an interesting online timer while students were doing discussions and having students sign up for Spice Up activity for each week (we had Laffy Taffy and Jumping Jack for these two weeks) that they need to facilitate a 3-5 minutes activity when the class needs to be spiced up.

FA13 - W200 Teaching - Self Evaluation

This is my first semester of teaching W200, an undergraduate course. For me, it is not only a challenging mission that I want to accomplish, but also a great opportunity for me to improve my education profession and instructional skills. 

First, let me first evaluate my strengths and weaknesses in teaching this technology integration course. 

After my first time teaching of W200 this week, I reflected myself that classroom time management is my first priority that I need to improve for this class. Some unpredictable things can happen in class some times. Therefore, I need to learn how to solve problems (students' questions or technical problems) as fast as I can and not delay on my instruction schedule as possible. Most importantly, students should be given enough time to do their hands-on activities and practices to process the knowledge and skills they are learning. Also, giving enough opportunities to ask questions is something I need to do more in my class. I believe that as I teach more, I would know how to keep the class rolling more.

I believe that being a good educator is not an easy job. From my own perspective, a good educator should be knowledgable about the course content with lots of authentic examples for students from different backgrounds and needs. Although I think I can be familiar with the course content, the skill that I also have to improve is to know what students in each subject area need and to give specific examples related to their subject areas or grade levels as useful and helpful feedback. Another instructional skill that I need to improve in my teaching is to ask good and inspiring questions that can trigger students to think deeper about what they are learning and why it is important to them.

Although this is my first experience teaching undergraduates and my teaching knowledge and skills are still developing, I am confident that I have passion and motivation to teach W200. I think I have enough patient with solving problems for my students and trying to use different ways to engage my students in their learning journey in my class. I am looking forward to learn from my mentor, senior instructors as well as my students.