U-Blog 5

Today's blog is going to be on the different styles of teaching. My main thought when I first started reading the different styles of teaching was on how it completely depends on who is being taught.

In a classroom setting, I believe it would be impossible for one style to be effective on all students, and therefore the teacher must determine the "most" effective and go with it. On the other hand there are some teachers that just teach the style that they are most comfortable with. In my opinion this is fine, but obviously not in the best interest of the students.

I think the best way would be to somehow implement many different kinds of teaching into the classroom. For example, one day the teacher would have a lecture and get all of the information out to the students and then the following class they would use a discovery method like small-group discussions. This would allow the students to break into small groups and talk about the information with other students.

In the end, I believe it is also on the student, to want to learn. If they have no desire to learn then no amount or style of teaching in the world will allow them to do so. And on the other foot, the teacher has to want the students to learn and not just be there to lecture through material and give out tests.

U-Blog 4

In the last week or so we have been reading a good deal on learning objectives and the importance of them. Robert Mager gave some insight on how to more effectively write them. He wanted to avoid vague phrases such as "understand". Instead he wanted to focus on what exactly he wanted the trainee to accomplish. For example, in the observation I had at the Lowman Home, the group was giving a training session on "Internet Use". They had objectives listed that were very specific. They stated specifically what the trainee was going to be able to do after the session, or at least what they wanted the trainees to be able to do.
They were not vague as in "After this course: You will be able to surf the internet". It was more like, "You will know how to return to your homepage." They were very specific.
I think it is very imperative to have good training objectives/goals to strive to achieve for during a training session. Just like it is wise to have goals to strive to achieve for throughout your life.