My Instructional Methods

My teaching model for the instructional technology course attempts to mimic the success of Code.org's professional development program. In particular, I carry on the "teacher-learner-observer" (TLO) practice, in which students (preservice teachers) will role-play lessons using the Teacher/Learner/Observer Model, allowing the students to experience different instructional technology strategies as teachers, learners, or observers. Students with the teacher role take the time to prepare and deliver a lesson; students with the learner role engage with the lesson as students; and students with the observer role debrief after the lesson to reflect on lessons with classmates. If I want my students to understand how to teach a course, they must be provided with as many opportunities as possible to engage with the material in authentic ways. This is especially true when trying to achieve the audacious twin-goals of (1) creating new teachers in the rapidly changing world of technology and (2) improving teaching practice in the field at the same time. My instructional technology curriculum attempts to achieve the same goals.

I usually integrate many of the popular instructional methods and strategies into my own teaching (natural authentic teaching contexts) in order to expose my students to new instructional methods and strategies such as a flipped classroom, rich-content student response system, video-based quiz, etc. For the methods and strategies that do not integrate well in my instructional technology curriculum, I create and present separate model lessons.    

I don't intend to be the fountain of knowledge in certain areas. For example, I am not an expert in speech pathology, and I don't necessarily know how best technology integrates into their practice. Where I cannot be an expert, I try to be a facilitator and design the curriculum to allow students to own their learning and to learn from their peers. Watch the two Teacher Tips videos from Code.org, which align with my teaching philosophy.

To facilitate classroom discussions, I incorporate the think-pair-share method whenever we have enough time. 

Integrating a virtual learning environment is a must in my instructional technology course where students need to have some control over place, path, and pace of learning in order to explore and learn different ed-tech strategies and tools. 

Gamification does more than just making lesson contents more fun. The strategies and tools I use to gamify some of my lesson contents produce other pedagogical benefits such as providing rich and authentic contexts through short movies,