Review of Last Semester

The class that this blog was made for is now over. While I hope to routinely write things that I learn, it will probably not be as frequently. Last semester I took Instructional Technology and Multicultural Education. I am going to list out some things that I want to remember but aren't already on either my website or this blog.
Assessment-I want every student to get an A. This doesn't mean making the test a walk in the park but it means giving lots of review and practice opportunities for students before they are assessed. Go beyond just preparing your students for exams, the class should be about the learning not the grades. The grades will hopefully reflect the learning, therefore if a student does poorly on an exam and then learns the subject better let them do a retake or a way to make up more points from. One example this semester was having them write about each problem they got wrong and why its wrong and what the right answer is and why its right. Let them get full points back, if they now know 100% of the material they should get a 100%. "Oh what if all the students do poorly because they know they can make up the points?" Hopefully the students are a little more responsible than that. Plus it is going to be a lot of work to get back the points, it would be easier for them if they studied and just did it right the first time.
Lecturing- This wasn't necessarily part of the curriculum but just something I thought about. Keeping students engaged-make sure they feel comfortable asking questions and encourage it. I liked how some of my professors involved modern events into the curriculum for example learning about high and low pressure systems talk about Hurricane Sandy, talking about porosity or another thing to do with geology talk about the transcanadian pipe line. Talk about what made the hurricane worse than others (it ran into a pressure system that kept feeding it, talk about how hurricanes lose power once they hit over land because the rain to ocean cycle feeds its power and it can no longer do that over land).
Multicultural education-It is hard for me to explain what I took from this class..it was very abstract. They talked about how condensing one ethnic group down to a month (Black history month) is wrong. Every day should be about all cultures in America. Hard to say how I would incorporate that into teaching science. I guess I would be cautious when picking out a textbook, I want it to include scientists besides just "old white guys."
Technology-Most of this is on the website so no need to reiterate it! Just keep up on the times I suppose.