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This month we feature two sites, both formed by contributions from hundreds of people. One is MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) and another is PEOI (Professional Education Organization International) which was created, and is run by volunteers who believe that it is time for open post secondary education be made available to all free of charge, and that the Internet is making this possible. MERLOT is also similarly a user-centered, searchable collection of peer reviewed and selected material for higher education, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services.
PEOI - The idea of setting up a professional education web site grew out of the work of John Petroff (who still sends out the newsletter and personally responds to mails), an American economics professor, in Russia and Kazakhstan for USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and the European Commission in the 1990's.
Last Feature There are different types of learners in our classrooms - depending on the way they perceive, the way the process information and the way they interact with other students. This topic is covered in our workshops too. So to be effective, we need to use many alternative approaches. This increases our reach. I have found one site Educypedia which has information resources about Scientific and Educational material: Electronics, Science, Engineering, Encyclopedia and Information Technology. It has free resources on the web and has lot of animations in addition to text material, slides and tutorials. Please use them generously in your classes or to become clearer in your own mind! The actual animations have been also put under our resources in Teachers' Toolbox section. Click here to see it.Change at MIT! With physicists across the country pushing for universities to do a better job of teaching science, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),has made a striking change to its introductory physics classes. The physics department has replaced the traditional large introductory lecture with smaller classes that emphasize hands-on, interactive, collaborative learning. Following implementation of the changes, attendance is up and the failure rate has dropped by more than 50 percent. And M.I.T. is not alone. Other universities are changing their ways:the schools' physicists have been pioneering teaching methods drawn from research showing that most students learn fundamental concepts more successfully, and are better able to apply them, through interactive, collaborative, student-centered learning. The Times explains the research and reasoning behind the changes, and also describes the technology and teaching methods that MIT has employed in its revised approach, dubbed TEAL, or Technology Enhanced Active Learning. Read. more hereWork in India The learning and development of one teacher will translate into better education for thousands of students. It is important to create innovative resources that help educators, administrators, principals and teachers in delivering better quality education to their students and to manage their schools / colleges professionaly.
Yes, this is the goal of School of Educators - mainly for school segment and contains a large number of resources which are categorised on the left panel. I saw two short movies and liked them very much. One is about good and bad methods of classroom management and another about interactive teaching. The teacher refers to an idea about just stretching the knowledge of the students from what they know and uses student discussions to engage them in the learning. Students seem to be enjoying the course. This site is the culmination of efforts by Vishal Jain, a young educator and his team. An engineer by education, he has various achivements to his credit and runs a company which develops school management software and another website through which school equipment is sold. As I have always emphasised, there will always be something relevant for any teacher whether school or college. Go ahead and explore. I am sure you will benefit, as I have. So far we have always featured western sites in this area. There is work happening in India too. Some more sites are here. International Academy for Creative Teaching (iACT) - an arm of the Jain Group of Institutions, it desires to bridge the gap between the need and availability of good teachers. They have graduate program in creative teaching and they also conduct workshops for teachers. Academy of Creative Teaching, Bangalore provides management and HR consultancy and training to schools. It has office overseas also. You can't improve your teaching without changing it. This is the punch line on Geoff Petty's site. And the by-line is "What the student does is more important than what the teacher does" Of course he is hinting at active learning. Geoff Petty is author of Britain's best selling teacher training text: 'Teaching Today: a practical guide'. His new book is: ' Evidence Based Teaching ' He has built a website that has valuable downloads and material on active learning. He says there are two main steps for improvement in teaching (and which happen to be the same at Teacher's Academy)
From his site I also got links to more treasures of information: The ERIC mission is to provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use, searchable, Internet-based bibliographic and full-text database of education research and information. The Educator's Reference Desk provides access to the following resources:
Resource Collection - Links to over 3000 resources on a variety of educational issues. This collection includes Internet sites, educational organizations, and electronic discussion groups.
The Center for Teaching and Learning was originally established at Stanford in 1975 with it's resources in faculty and scholarship to promote the improvement of college and university teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a secondary purpose, CTL was to expand the assistance provided to Stanford's own contingent of future faculty, its teaching assistants. They were soon serving several hundred each year. A year later, with mandatory end-quarter course evaluations having been adopted, the Faculty Senate successfully requested that CTL be opened to faculty as well. Since then, approximately 750 faculty have used one or more of the services.In 1996, CTL developed still another important service for undergraduates, graduate students, and the faculty the Program in Oral Communication. Staffed by two lecturers, the Program sponsors courses, workshops, a Speaking Center and a corps of oral communication consultants, all designed to enhance the public speaking skills and confidence of the students. The Program also provides consultation and assistance to faculty who would like to integrate oral communication instruction into their classes
Thesesites get almost a million unique visitors a year, and are linked to by a thousand or so other sites across the world.
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