Way to be Direct....

I am so glad there is a name for all those years of lecturing that teachers have given over the years...Direct Instruction. Direct Instruction is a teacher centered strategy of learning. Teachers give the basic skills and knowledge of the topic being taught, by astep by step process. It is a very structured and organize way of teaching. Five steps are usually involved: 1) Setting clear goals for students 2) Presenting sequence of well organized assignments 3) Give students clear outlines of the subject matter 4) Asking students frequent questions 5) Student practice what they learn. Also known as, "I do, you do, we do". There is a lot of criticism about Direct Instruction. It is not student centered, does not promote creativity, and focuses on the lowest level of Bloom's Taxomony, Knowledge. There are also positives involved with this. It guarentees specific learning outcomes, uses time effectivily, and easy to implement. Overall, I think it is very hard to avoid using this way of teaching, but while lecturing the class about a new topic the teacher should try to make it fun to keep the students from not listening. Plus it is importatnt to incorporate other strategies of teaching which is student focused and incorporates creativity, such as indirect.

Hello, Hello, Hello.

It is crazy to think we are already in week four of class and this is my first post of the semester! I need to get into blogging mind-set again! The first few weeks have been a great review of Curricular Planning. I have to say, I am so glad that I learned so much in Curricular Planning, because it is coming in use for Methods! So far we have reviewed goals and learning concepts, Bloom's Taxonomy, CBC objectives, and Models, Strategies, and Methods. I am excited to use all of these concepts and incorporate them into my WebQuest! I had a really good time looking through WebQuest last semester and can not wait to create my own. They seem like they are a lot of fun to create, and encourage lots of creativity. Another thing that I have enjoyed this semester so far is learning more about SMARTboard. When Dr. Smirnova showed us some ways to incorpate the SMARTboard into morning meeting I was amazed how interactive and fun it makes
learning for students. It is a fun way for students to learn and want to participate in class.
Another thing we have been talking about in class is Lesson Planning. Spring semester was Unit Planning and this time around we moved to lesson planning. Basically, a forecast of goals, and organization of teaching and learning. It will be useful to learn ways to create lesson plans which makes it fun and educational for the class.
Well, that is enough for today, but I will be sure to update every week so I don't miss a thing!