The last two entries in one

Ok, I've been bad about my entries, so here are two entries. #1: The 3 most important concepts I learned about instructional strategies are that it's important for students to use metacognitive and cognitive skills to organize & learn information. Also, I learned the difference between cognitive and metacognitive. Finally, I didn't realize how often I use metacognitive skills; I've taken those skills for granted and didn't realize how important it is to teach them. I try to use a combination of metacognitive and cognitive skills; I definitely try to scaffold all my lessons. #2: 3 things I learned: 1. That adapting the text can be as simple as making a concept map. 2. Instruction should follow the natural language pattern. 3. Visuals paired with context is very important; I didn't realize how much the combination mattered until the Chinese lesson. After I read the article, I decided that the strategy I like best for making textbooks more readable is creating concept maps. Quite frankly, I think it's the least time consuming, yet still very effective. Ok, there are my entries. Sorry they're so late!!! Caroline

textbooks & more

Well, today I learned how to make a blog, I received the info about software evals and I about to begin my textbook eval. I am evaluating "Highpoint" because I might want to adopt it for American Falls. One thing that I've learned, or I guess I just didn't think about before, are the underlying assumptions or theories in a text book. For example, does the textbook value strong listening, speaking, and writing? Does the text book guide students to understand authentic text rather than simply identify words? Anyway, it's all very interesting......

Caroline

My first entry

I have just created my first blog! I'm in the IMC library doing my textbook evaluation. I have so much to do! It might be fun to have a blog. We'll see. Ok, I'll write more later.......

Caroline