College Level Teaching

[nleamons]

Not long after, I finished my Bachelor's degree; I was asked if I would teach three college level courses this semester. At the time, I was looking for a job in the computer field; so I agreed to teach these college level courses. Now that I am half-way through the semester; I have a greater appreciation for all the teachers out there who teach because teaching is not an easy job to undertake. Therefore, I am asking for some good advice on how teachers structure their courses. Preferably focus the advice on Networking Basics, Multimedia, and Storyboard I.

[OE800_85]

I can only speak in general terms as a teacher, my advice is as follows:

Try to avoid the traditional lecture structure. Any opportunity to address real problems and interact with students is valuable. Simply standing in a room lecturing is essentially the same thing as reading a textbook or watching a video at home.

[marianne202]

I've been teaching for 12 years and I agree, as much as you can, interject real life examples or incorporate simulations that mimic real world scenarios. I have to do some lecturing, but I try to weave in examples as I go so it keeps them awake! If you can explain the concepts in terms they can understand given their current level of knowledge, that is best. For your specific classes maybe you can come up with some practical games where you use the students to act as routers, switches, relays etc. If they can see the actions in real-life it can make the cyber actions easier to follow. What about using some tangible example to explain the difference in MB, KB, GB etc. I also highly recommend that you learn about different learning styles and try to incorporate something for each learning style in each class. I personally try to use texts and materials that have lots of different types of materials, such as audio, video, worktexts or texts with workbooks for repitition. What about some of the free virtual network labs I have heard about, that might add another dimension. I wish I knew more things for your specific subjects and I know some of these things like text selection might be out of your control, but you might be able to find some supplemental resources on the web or from the publisher. Good luck!

[OE800_85]

Also wolframalpha and many other sites have great visual demonstrations. These are more for mathematics, but I imagine there are applicable tools for you there as well.\

Wolfram Demonstrations Project