EdTe 226: Seminar: Strategies for Teachers
Course
Syllabus
California
State University, Sacramento
Department of Teacher Education
College of Education
Spring, 2001
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Course Description:
Seminar focuses on analyzing various teaching strategies used in classrooms, K-12. Teaching strategies will be analyzed to identify teacher competencies and learning outcomes. Additional attention will be given to appropriate classroom management strategies.
Assumptions:
It is assumed that the strategy lessons and project that you develop for this course are ideas new to you. During the course you may recognize that you have taught part or all of some of the strategies. Rather than writing up what you have already taught, you will need to generate new ideas and lessons, to extend and reinforce your teaching repertoire.
You will be asked to be a risk taker. There will be many strategies that are already familiar to you, however there will be some that are totally new to you or you may recognize aspects. If you already have expertise in a strategy, you will probably want to skip that strategy (for practicing) and move on to new arenas. That takes courage!
No one is expected to be perfect at first. After observing and participating in a strategy in the university classroom, then reading about the strategy, you will be asked to design a lesson (or lessons) to practice the strategy with students. You will have opportunities to discuss the strategies and the outcomes with other members of the class. Typically, one person has had successes in one area, and can offer advice, whereas another class member has had successes in a different area and can offer advice.
By the end of the course you should have a larger repertoire of teaching strategies, a knowledge of when and why to use strategies and ideas for adapting strategies. Your final project may give you ideas for integrating strategies with one another.
Overall Desired Goals:
Participants will:
- Develop a repertoire of teaching strategies.
- Assess own learning/teaching style(s).
- Develop a risk-taking attitude.
- Understand the variety of purposes for different models.
- Reflect on planning and implementation of strategies.
- Compare models using a variety of criteria.
- Integrate technology with teaching strategies.
- Construct a final project which synthesizes course topics.
- Develop ideas and methods for studying teaching.
Knowledge objectives:
Participants will:
- Demonstrate knowledge of each phase of each strategy presented and studied in class.
- Differentiate between learning style and teaching style.
- Identify the purposes of different strategies.
- Know how to adapt different strategies to different learners and learning situations.
Skill objectives:
Participants will:
- Design lessons which apply to strategies from at least three different families.
- Design objectives which reflect learners, content and strategies.
- Design evaluation techniques for strategies themselves and for learners.
- Design classroom management considerations consistent with strategies.
- Design lessons in which technology enhances the implementation of the strategy.
- Analyze and compare models using technology and not using technology,
Attitude Objectives
Participants will:
- Choose to design strategies that are out of their "comfort zone".
- Give and receive constructive feedback on strategy plans.
The following assignments are due on the dates indicated on the calendar.
Assignments (Required) (100 Pts.)
Assignment 1:
Attendance and participation are required (25 points)Sometimes professional responsibilities or illness may result in absences. Up to two absences will be accepted (please discuss with instructor.) For each absence beyond two, course grade will be lowered by one grade (e.g. A to B.) Over four absences will require a disenrollment in the course.
Assignment 2:
(The purpose of this assignment is to have you become familiar with and practice specific strategies or models within your content area(s) and with your students.)
Write lessons for six different strategies, seven lessons total (35 pts.) presented in class (inductive reasoning and 2 concept attainment required; you choose the other four from those underlined on the syllabus). It would be great if you can teach the lessons to your students. Present lessons and results to a peer group or peer teach or share at least two lessons. You may want to present before you teach to get group feedback, or you may want to present the lesson after you taught it, with student artifacts from the lesson. Write up a lesson evaluation for each lesson that is presented to peers or taught. Use feedback from the class members. For all lesson plans, use the format given in class and (phases)presented in the readings for each model.
Assignment 3:
Portfolio (10 pts.) (The purpose of this assignment is to have you analyze your choices for strategies and model development, to analyze your "risk-taking," and to set professional goals.)
You will collect at least the six models/strategies that you developed for this class as well as your learning style analysis and reflection from the first class session, class work and your final project. You may include other items if you wish. As you analyze these examples, ask yourself these types of questions:
- Do you have a variety of lessons? Have you focused on one family over other families? e.g. Are you more comfortable with some families over others?
- Are your lessons more teacher /materials oriented or more student oriented? How or why did you make these choices?
- What was easy? Difficult? For you? For your students?
- Do your lessons tap different intelligences? An array or focus on some specific intelligences?
- What will you continue to use, develop? What is promising for your students, your content area(s)? What are your goals for the future (concerning instructional strategies)?
After thinking about your collection and your decisions, write a 1 to 2 page paper addressing the above questions and course objectives. Please feel free to add your own questions or modify those above.
Assignment 4:
Project (30 pts.) (The purpose of this assignment is to have you add to your repertoire of strategies by sequencing, synthesizing and / or combining different strategies/models. You may use some of the models developed in class -assignment 2- however the expectation is for you to further extend your application of models and develop new plans for this assignment.) This final project has further description under "final project" on the green bar on the syllabus page.
Enter your course grading information in the table below.
A Outstanding
achievement; 90
points B Excellent
performance; clearly exceeds course
requirements 80
points C Average 70
points D Passed, but not at
average achievement standards 60
points F Failure to meet
class requirement 50
points Incomplete:
Discuss with professor, department policy allows
for illness only.
Students will need an electronic mail account and computer access to the Web. All CSUS students enrolled in one or more units can create a SacLink account for electronic mail and Internet services. Although a home computer with a high speed modem running Netscape or Internet Explorer would be beneficial, students can use the Web from one of the campus student labs.
Computing Recommendations
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Students need an electronic mail account and computer access to the Web. All CSUS students enrolled in one or more units can create a SacLink account for electronic mail and Internet services. Although a home computer with a high speed modem running Netscape or Internet Explorer would be beneficial, students can use the Web from one of the campus student labs.
Required: The text for the course this semester is/are:
Joyce, B., Weil, J. and Showers, B. (2000). Models of Teaching, 6th. ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Erickson, H. Lynn. (1998). Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction: Teaching Beyond the Facts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc.
You can purchase books through the Hornet Bookstore. Check their Distance and Distributed Learning page at http://www.bookstore.csus.edu/bookstore/distance/ for ordering information.