Reflections on Learning and Teaching
Lesson 1: Setting the Scene - Positive Relationships and Reflective Practice
The importance of setting up the scene on the first day of class to draw students into the course and prepare them to learn is highlighted by James M. Lang (2018). James argues that students form a lasting impression of you and your course from early thin-sliced judments from the first day of teaching. He adds that these initial judgments are powerful enough to condition their attitudes, the efforts they are willing to output, and the relationships with you and their peers throughout the entirety of the course. As such, he has devised four key principles that he believes will help decide which activites and approaches will leave a positive lasting impact. These include: (1) Curiosity, (2) Community, (3) Learning and (4) Expectations.
In my first class for ENSC3001 Mechanisms and Machines and MECH5502 Analysis and Design of Machine Components, I ensured that the princples outlined by James was implemented. In his first principle, he describes the first day as the best opportunity to spark student’s curiosity and invite them into the journey. As a part of the introduction to the unit, I presented my learning and research experiences using my current research and past projects, explaining the connection between them and the unit’s content. By the end of the class, students asked questions relating to how they could get into the work I do, but also about the ways they could improve their learning experience for the course. These feedback gave me a sense that the students were curious about the work I do, the content of the course and also the effort they are willing to invest for the best learning experience.
Lesson 2: Assessment and Feedback
Lesson 3: Designing a High-Impact Digital Learning Experience in the Online Classroom
Lesson 4: Active Learning Strategies for Collaborative Small Group Teaching
In engineering, I believe using both summative and formative assessments are appropriate. Both of these types of assessments allow me to assess student learning and give me opportunities to give and receive feedback. This is especially important as it allows both parties, the teacher and the student, to evaluate our work. It allows myself to assess the effectiveness of my teaching and the student to evaluate their learning and understanding.
There are many methods under each type of assessments that is available to be used under certain circumstances. For formative assessment, the methods are useful in a tutorial/practical/workshop environment as they are quick and easy to carry out. For example, I believe group discussions and quizzes to be the most useful methods for an engineering class. In engineering, there are many technical concepts which are taught, and sometime, it can be difficult for students to keep up due to the volume that is covered. As such, regular quizzes and group discussions allows the students to take a step back to evaluate their understanding and review the material. In addition, summative assessments are useful for larger projects that checks the cumulative understanding of the student. In this case, an analytic type of rubric which assigns different weights to different criteria to assess students will be appropriate. Projects assess students in many different areas and hence, having more specific feedback on which area the students are doing well in or needs further help will be useful for both teachers and students.