This week our classmates began their online lessons. Everyone did a nice job, but wow the amount of follow up work in addition to the other work, is insane. I'm learning alot, but holy cow. Can you say overwhelmed? The lesson that stuck out the most for me was Mike's at-risk. Not because it was better, but just the topic. It was interesting to hear about other people's ideas about their district's "at-risk" population.
This week's focus was on making student centered lessons. I felt I almost had to work backwards. Overall my lessons tend to be student centered. I think it's because of the population I'm working with and their curriculum. My classes work at a slower pace than their peers, due to repetition and to help increase retention. I also spend a lot of time incorporating technology, computers - software programs and the Internet, SmartBoard, iPods, Senteos, etc. into their lessons. This takes time, but increases motivation and retention. I feel the same can be true about online learning. However, online teachers can also fall victim to same ol' same ol' just like traditional teachers. Online learning doesn't automatically make it student centered, the teacher too needs to make it happen. Even in this cohort I've sat through courses where it's very much teacher centered. At times you wonder are your cohorts even tuned in or has someone else just signed them in. That too can be the case with online learning. Any good teacher, whether online or in the classroom, needs to be prepared and engaging. They need to be constantly adding, removing, and changing their lessons.
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