Week 9: The Last Word - Take 2

This week's discussion was a slightly different take on The Last Word discussion we had a couple of weeks before. In this one each person posted a quote from the reading that they found to be of value, and then each of the other people in the group posted a 250 word or less response. Then the initial poster got to put in a 25o word final say about why they chose that quote, what the group's response was, and what he or she still thought about the topic. I enjoyed the bigger limit on the word count because it felt like people were able to describe their thoughts more clearly. It was enough to say what they were thinking clearly but without boring everyone else by going on and on. Some people did step outside the initial setup by posting little comments to others, and this did not seem to distract from the overall conversation. I admit, I did this to give out some Karma points, and I noticed some others did as well, adding in little comments to say they liked what someone else had posted.

I think my best post this week came in response to the quote Jennifer McCarty picked about remedial instruction. It is still something I am thinking about:

"The content itself is rarely the problem and moving forward in a unit or session would create more work for the instructor in the long run if the student does not understand it in the beginning. Being able to humble yourself as the teacher and say you missed your mark and need to present the material in a different mode shows your commitment to students learning the information. This also will develop a deeper relationship between you and the students. I think the big key in this situation is being able to use the previous lesson or learning experience in the new or alternate presentation by referring to it, and not ignoring it as if it was a failure. You will still have the respect of your students and you can monitor if they may have learned any of the previous lesson from the new format. Ultimately if they do it would mean you have doubled up on the learning experiences?"

I think this was my best contribution because it takes a lot to say you just did not teach something well enough the first time and should work on still giving the students the material in the next lesson. I have been thinking about the costs involved in going back and making a whole new section for learners to catch up if they did not understand it the first time. The book suggested using different material, and I am not sure how feasible this would be. So it is something I am looking forward to learning more about…