I admit I've been a little anxious about completing an assignment that involves a lesson plan (which I don't use) and an actual class (which I don't have). While I do provide instruction to adult students, I'm really more guest lecturer than teacher, and I don't have access to the same group of students over multiple days or weeks. I provide my lesson during one meeting of someone else's course, so my dilemma is how to compare the effectiveness of a technology-based lesson to a non-technology lesson without a group of students to be my guinea pigs.
To overcome this obstacle, I decided to prepare a short class on a single topic, but deliver one session in a face-to-face classroom, and another session as a self-paced online tutorial. I would give all of the students the same pre- and post-tests, but the face-to-face group would complete their tests on paper and the tutorial group would submit their responses online.
Since I work with a number of colleagues who are enrolled in various degree programs, I thought they would do as an audience of adult learners who could be taught how to use Google Scholar to research a topic. I invited some of them to the classroom session and others to do the online tutorial. I thought I'd have to bribe them with food, but as it turns out, several were quite willing to participate simply for the opportunity of learning something new about doing research. Although the groups are small, I expect them to be similar in terms of technical skills and familiarity with the content, so I'm hoping to get interesting results.
Of course I still don't have any experience with writing lesson plans, but I've found some good examples to follow, and more importantly, standards that make sense for my learning environment.
Some might call this "making it up as you go along", but I prefer to think of it as improvisation.
Julie,
ReplyDeleteThat is great that you had such an enthusiastic and large group of responders to your lesson you will be teaching, with or without the bribes! I can honestly say that I think adults are the worst students, especially when it comes to meetings. Maybe it is because we always feel there is something else we can be doing, or we think we already know the material, or it isn’t important or beneficial. Whatever it is I hope you have a high participation rate in your classes! Whenever we have a faculty meeting at school or professional learning on an early release day there is ALWAYS grumbling and complaining from one person or another. While sitting in these meetings no one ever wants to ask questions or participate and I can promise you most people are playing a game on their phones, texting, talking, sleeping, or grading papers. I can’t say I don’t do it because I do, but I think that you have the hardest task of all….teaching to adults. As a department we have to present data to the entire high school twice a year, I would say that it was hard and makes me a little nervous but I know that no one is actually paying attention to what we say so it is a breeze. I guess with this being said I can’t really blame my students when they sometimes doze off or try to get away with playing on their phones during class (however, they will surely be caught since I have a sixth sense about that type of thing)!
Cari Tester
Great idea Julie! Adult learners was a great twist and also having the online training. I would like to know what the results are so I will be checking out your video to see what happened. Adult learners are just like kids. Cari said it all above so I say adult learner get bored, restless, and uncooperative. LOL! So I'm sure you and I will have a very similar experience. Bring food anyway so you can keep them tamed and attentive.
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