During my PIDP program I have successfully completed 3100, 3210,3220, 3230, 3240,3250. I am currently taking 3260, and hope to finish 3270 Capstone starting in September. When I reflect back on all my courses I found that I was able to benefit in many different ways from each course and each teacher.
During The Foundations of Adult Education 3100 I found I was introduced to concepts and techniques for teaching and learning. This gave me the desire to keep going.
The Curriculum of Development 3210 course primarily focused upon the design and development of curriculum documents. This course highlighted for me the connection between course outcomes/goals, delivery of instruction, and the assessment and evaluation of learning. Specifically the lesson plans. What I learned is to design my lessons from the learner’s point of view. This course was a lot of fun. I remember our group was funny and engaging. I found all the mini lessons very engaging. Even the one on “How to create a Facebook account”, as I remember that the student had technical difficulties and didn’t know how to do it, but he was so engaging and believable that it didn’t matter. I was proud of our class because we all remained professional.
The Delivery of Instructions 3220 course is where we did three mini lessons. We were encouraged to select from the three domains of learning which are cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. We provided a written reflective report for each lesson. I did find this increased my instructional skills as an adult educator. We had to present three mini lessons in this class with Bob. The amount of preparation needed to present our lessons compared to the other classes felt harder. I had so much fun with my lessons and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Especially the one where we had to do the lesson along with someone else and learn to plan our teaching time accordingly.
The Evaluation of Learning 3230 course provided me with the knowledge and skills to design and implement a comprehensive strategy for obtaining information that is used to inform learners of their progress. It is interesting to understand the summative vs formative assessment strategies. What I especially remember is encouraging the learner to keep track of their own grade. This keeps the grade in the hand of the learner, reduces surprises, and promotes early attention to slipping grades.
The Media Enhanced Learning 3240 course emphasizes the application of media related concepts, copyright laws, media approaches and learning theories in the creation and selection of instructional media. Since I teach employees how to interpret privacy legislation I was very intrigued with the Copyright section. This was my favorite course. I feel like I learned so much in creating, selecting, using media, technology and tools for various teaching and learning environments. I really like how I was able to apply the knowledge immediately to my training sessions at work. I was able to teach my husband a few new tricks that he has started using in his training at BCIT. This was my very first online course.
The Instructional Strategies 3250 course helped me learn how to manage the classroom and handle difficult situations in a respectful, professional manner. This was most helpful as some of my students were attending because they had been told to and not because they wanted to be there. Using creative techniques to help the students learn how to learn and how to think critically and creatively has helped me apply it to my own teaching. This is the course where I found my favourite quote: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”_ Albert Einstein.
The Professional Practice 3260 course is self paced and I find myself fully engaged and ready to go. So far its been a lot of research and writing which is great as this is one of my favorite things to do. When I was researching Accreditation I was surprised to find out how important this can be and how it can affect the students and not just the schools. The Ethical Dilemma project I did with Todd my partner was interesting as it really made you think through the process and have the courage to make a decision. We also had to learn to work together.
Some of the high points during my PID program were meeting people from all walks of life. It definitely showed what a ‘small world’ we have. I also recognize that as much as you think you know there is always some else with a different perspective or even better idea. This made me appreciate my peers.
Based on what I have learned so far I will be dedicating more time to my lesson plans. This will help me to understand the student activities and my activities as the instructor. I also want to improve on my formative assessments. I feel its important to stay aware of how your students are doing to allow you to make changes before it affects the learning outcome. I have to say that before this course I only conducted summative assessments but this course has made me realize the importance of formative assessments. I know for sure that I will be a life long learner. I will need to stay apprised of the constant changes within my field both as a teacher and in my practice.
marialoehrich 