Teaching Reflection 2

The three readings for this week’s class all reinforced the fact that teaching or creating a teaching session is a design process. The things that you have to think about are the users, their needs, the tasks that you need to get through to fit those needs and the users, and to have goals and objectives for the outcome. The instruction session has to have a context. The context will let you know, as a teacher or presenter, how much information and where that session should go as far as what level of skills are you going to give to the users.

For example, if I was just going to do a presentation (which I will in a few weeks), then I do not need to get the audience to reach the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. I want them to reach the level of understanding (second level) not the highest level where they would be able to do a project or create something based on my presentation. Presentations are generally shorter than a class session. There is not enough time to get the audience to that level unless it is one in s series of presentations or the people in the room are experts that already understand what you are presenting. However, in these cases you will either get to the point where the audience will be able to create something or the experts are just there for the information in order to question or incorporate in their research. These are different contexts and expectations.

Treating an instruction session or a presentation like a design process put me in a place where I was familiar. I am use to and know the design process well through my classes and work. The hardest part was the learning objectives. Learning objectives are a little different than objectives in general, when we are talking about designing something tangible. I found that the use of verbs was important. I had to make sure that I also was more specific on what the objectives were. When creating objectives, you really have to think about the needs and task analysis. The objectives have to be broken down just like a task analysis, into its simplest parts. Once I understand that and take down objectives, I have to look at them and be realistic with the context. The time I have and the users (learners) could limit, change, or expand on my objectives. For example, if I was teaching a class at the graduate level for Political Science and I knew most of the students came in with a B.A. in Political Science, then one of my objectives would not include teaching them to understand the basic concepts and theories of Political Science.

The final thing I learned was that you have to have an outline. Once you have an idea of what you might teach, what the user’s prior knowledge might be, and the context in which you are going to teach, then you can create an outline. I know that the outline will change as I start planning and designing the instruction session, but I will have a start and I will know what I will have to work on in order to teach what I am planning to teach. I will know if the time and what I want to teach is realistic. I will also start to think about how I am going to teach the session: paper v electronic, interactive v lecture, etc.

My reflections for this week are on that fact that I need to approach a teaching session or presentation like a design process. I need to think about learning objectives in specific and smaller units. Finally, I need to have an outline after my initial analysis, that will most likely change as I go, but will give me a place to start and to plan.

BCIT Learning and Teaching Centre. Writing learning outcomes.

Morrison, G. R., Ross, M. S., & Kemp, J. E. (2004). Designing effective instruction. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons. Chapters 4, & 5.

Luongo, N. Bloom's taxonomy.