TEACHING
Learning is most likely to occur when students feel valued as individuals, respected and supported in a dynamic learning environment. I think it is the teacher’s responsibility to create a stimulating, optimistic and non-threatening atmosphere where students are unafraid to participate and ask questions in class. It is important than the students learn from their mistakes.
Remarkable teachers seem to have some recognizable characteristics, such as: being able to mentor students, guide them through confusing times, to help them achieve their personal goals, to become leaders, and most importantly to arouse the students’ intellectual curiosity. Over the years, in order to help students learn better, teachers have been tailoring different methods depending on the type of learners they have in class. Teaching has evolved from the last-century approach to the information-age approach.
Ideally, teachers should creatively support the students’ construction of knowledge, by generously sharing information and supplying the best technology tools for the learning process. However, the most important thing is the quality of instruction not the devices. To be an exemplary technology educator, someone needs to have the appropriate training, equipment and at the same time will be willing to share this knowledge with the students. That means spending time preparing special activities, test or presentations for the students and spending more time giving feedback to the students. One of the main goals of the teacher is not only to show the importance of what the students need to learn, but also to invoke genuine enthusiasm in the subject. I have learned through personal experience that without motivation is almost impossible to learn something. It is obvious that students in the same class have different levels of preparation, and the teacher should work effectively with all of them. The teacher can use different motivational strategies with the help of technology.
For more than six years, I have been an instructor of educational technology for pre-service teachers in the college of education demonstrating basic development of Web pages and the use of Microsoft products for teaching (i.e., Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, etc.). My students learned how to make creative and interactive projects that focus on keeping their future learners engaged on the subject matter content.
During the summers I have been an instructor of engineering design at the High School level for the Gifted Education Resource Institute. I designed my own curriculum incorporating media and technology. My students built in this course many projects aimed to promote their creativity, innovation, problem-solving skills and collaboration with their peers. This past summer I taught this course in English and Spanish, because more than half of my students were Colombian students that came to Purdue as part of an exchange program organized by the Colombia-Purdue Initiative (CPI) where they joined other students from Korea, China, UAE, India, Greece and the United States.
Remarkable teachers seem to have some recognizable characteristics, such as: being able to mentor students, guide them through confusing times, to help them achieve their personal goals, to become leaders, and most importantly to arouse the students’ intellectual curiosity. Over the years, in order to help students learn better, teachers have been tailoring different methods depending on the type of learners they have in class. Teaching has evolved from the last-century approach to the information-age approach.
Ideally, teachers should creatively support the students’ construction of knowledge, by generously sharing information and supplying the best technology tools for the learning process. However, the most important thing is the quality of instruction not the devices. To be an exemplary technology educator, someone needs to have the appropriate training, equipment and at the same time will be willing to share this knowledge with the students. That means spending time preparing special activities, test or presentations for the students and spending more time giving feedback to the students. One of the main goals of the teacher is not only to show the importance of what the students need to learn, but also to invoke genuine enthusiasm in the subject. I have learned through personal experience that without motivation is almost impossible to learn something. It is obvious that students in the same class have different levels of preparation, and the teacher should work effectively with all of them. The teacher can use different motivational strategies with the help of technology.
For more than six years, I have been an instructor of educational technology for pre-service teachers in the college of education demonstrating basic development of Web pages and the use of Microsoft products for teaching (i.e., Word, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, etc.). My students learned how to make creative and interactive projects that focus on keeping their future learners engaged on the subject matter content.
During the summers I have been an instructor of engineering design at the High School level for the Gifted Education Resource Institute. I designed my own curriculum incorporating media and technology. My students built in this course many projects aimed to promote their creativity, innovation, problem-solving skills and collaboration with their peers. This past summer I taught this course in English and Spanish, because more than half of my students were Colombian students that came to Purdue as part of an exchange program organized by the Colombia-Purdue Initiative (CPI) where they joined other students from Korea, China, UAE, India, Greece and the United States.