After reviewing the self-evaluations and competencies for online instructors I found that I am almost a perfect fit. I am very detail-oriented and my lessons are extremely well organized and planned. On top of that I have pretty high level technology skills (thanks to my master's) and am extremely good at diving into a digital tool and messing with it to figure it out. My written communication is actually pretty nice considering I have a math/science brain. I am also a very motivated and self-disciplined person so I think I would be able to work from home and manage my time wisely. I am actually one of the technology leaders in my school so helping students with using technology along with the subject matter should be pretty similar to what I am doing now. I am also quite proficient at recording my direct instruction lessons for students to view and with the amazing capabilities of Blackboard Collaboration I think it could translate well into my need to directly instruct topics and get student participation/immediate feedback. Quite honestly the only thing I am NOT comfortable with is trying to figure out how to assess learning of students in the math and physics realm. I HATE multiple choice questions for computational problems because I miss out on the "meat" of the assessment. I like seeing the process students go through to solve a problem and I like being able to point out mistakes so that students can go back and make corrections (which aides in their learning). Not that all my assessments are computational because I do many investigations and performance assessments, however, there has to be a balance. I just know how much of a pain it is to "type" in the math world and you miss so much from not seeing the students actual work. So if anybody has suggestions on how to do that I am all "ears"!!!
Note: If you are confused I had to change my post from yesterday because I missed the detail about writing about the online self-evaluations instead of the technology!
Crystal,
ReplyDeleteI teach chemistry and physics, and the technical notation seems to be more of an issue with technology than other subjects. This seems quite unfair to me since we (the STEM's of the world) invented the stuff. I'm looking at graphics pads to help bridge this gap, and am waiting for two of our teachers to give me their reviews of the ones they've bought recently. The photo idea has some merit, but I'll let you try it, and look for your paper on how that works. I'm taking a more cautious approach. Really, I does sound like a workable solution.
Now I have something else to investigate..graphics pads!
DeleteHi Crystal,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there are various ways of doing thins so you can see their work. I like the idea of students still being able to use pencil and paper. Students could then scan in their work and send it as an attachment. Many printers today also scan.
I teach chemistry and feel the same way. Will I know they understand the process/have the skill to complete the problem? Chemistry is also difficult to "type" with subscripts and mathematical formulas. How can they show me they know how to do dimensional analysis? If someone gives you some tips, send them my way!
ReplyDelete