Teaching strategies and assessment

I really appreciated the handout on the lesson design model and it was simple and clear and will help to guide my thinking and planning in my lessons. I also found the list of selected teaching strategies gave me some good ideas and lots of alternatives for teaching. It will hopefully help me if/when I get stuck in a rut of teaching the same way, I can look through that list and come up with a different teaching strategy to use.
The lesson on assessment was very enlightening. The 'test' was interesting to do, both in terms of content and style. I think there are lots of lessons to be learned (and not repeat myself!). Thinking about how the level and percentage reporting systems interact was very valuable as I will have to use the level systen but am unfamiliar with it myself. Although I agree entirely with the philosophy of the level system I'm afraid the rest of the world isn't as progressive and the percentage system still has to be used. It will be interesting to see how both assessment and reporting systems are used in the classroom.

Classroom management and learning styles

I enjoyed the drama's for the classroom management section. I thought it was a really effective way of presenting some of the issues. As I watched each drama it helped me to think about how I would feel and how I would act in each situation and how the student might feel and act. The classroom discussions afterwards were also very useful in helping me to learn some effective tools for dealing with classroom situations.
I am also enjoying learning about different learning styles and particularly constructivism in both this and other classes. I am definitely a subscriber to the constructivist view although I didn't know the formal name for it until now! I am very pleased to see the new directions education is heading in with emphasis on the learning process of the students, taking into account their own previous knowledge and views and their multiple learning styles. Clarifying my thinking on these issues by learning formally about the different styles will be very beneficial to me as I enter the teaching profession.

First Week Impressions

One of the most interesting aspects of Bio30 so far is that what we are learning regarding teaching is very general rather than specific to teaching biology. I was expecting to learn the more general teaching aspects, such as class management, in the general courses like Psychology and to learn specifically how to teach Biology in Bio30. However, I have found our reflections on how we view curriculum and our personal curriculum 'orientation' to be useful in clarifying my thoughts on these important topics. I have done a great deal of thinking about what my goals as a teacher are/will be and was therefore not at all suprised by the result of my curriculum orientation profile, but I found it very useful to think of the separate statements and will definitely find them useful in articulating my views on education (in a job interview for example!).