Note: this version was revised based on Version 2 and comments from an instructional consultant My approach to teaching is based on my understandings of adults’ approach to learning. The mental space of adults, unlike that of babies, is already full of cognition that is gradually built upon years of past experience. Thus, rather than subconsciously absorbing new cognition, adults learn by enriching, modifying, or replacing their old cognition based on realizations of their deficiencies in the light of new cognition. Such cognitive changes happen only when adults could understand the new cognition through establishing connections with their old cognition. Therefore, my responsibility as a college teacher is to help students connect class materials with their existing knowledge or prior experience. At the beginning of the first class, I try to know what the students already know about the course topics through a background survey. In this survey, besides major and semester standing, they are asked about courses they have taken, concepts they know, preconceptions they have, and practical skills or real-world experience they have. At the end of each class, I assess what the students now know by asking them to write down what they have learned and what they are confused about (this is also a good way to assess my teaching effectiveness). Based on the students’ feedback as well as the course objectives, when I am preparing for each class, I select class materials that can be understood by the students, and choose teaching strategies and class activities that can best help the students connect the class materials with their existing knowledge or prior experience. At the last class, I ask the students to describe the course topics in a concept map. I keep their concept maps as evidence of my teaching effectiveness and, if applicable, transfer them to the instructor of the course for which my course is a prerequisite for. Take for example a class I taught for the final project of IST 602 “Supervised Experience in College Teaching”. The goal of this class was to teach the students pros and cons of Electronic Health Records (EHR) versus Paper Health Records (PHR). To tap their existing knowledge and prior experience, I first asked them to take a minute or two to think back their visits to a doctor, and to write down the format(s) their health records were in, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the format(s). Next, I made a brief introduction of the definition and characteristics of EHR, and played a YouTube video clip showing what paperless doctors’ offices looked like in a Hawaiian hospital and what the doctors thought about the transition from PHR to EHR. Then I asked the students to discuss the pros and cons of EHR versus PHR based on their knowledge or prior experience, as well as my lecture and the video clip. In the end, in order to assess their learning, I asked the students to write down briefly whether they think EHR should totally replace PHR and the reasons. Judging from their responses, the students had a better idea of the record keeping mechanisms in today’s healthcare services. My goal for the near future is to explore the functions of emerging technologies, especially web applications (e.g. Wiki, Blogs, Second Life), that could help make salient the connections between class materials and students’ existing knowledge or prior experience. Such explorations are also necessary to prepare me for facing the challenges associated with the recent trend in higher education----teaching online. |