Awesome NTI Learning

I felt the need to comment on the fact that even though our NTI classes have been long, Dr. B and Jessie have made them so interesting and informative! I feel that we have all been exposed to some clever new techniques, and I can honestly say that the learning in NTI has truly been a pleasure…mo rote memorization with subsequent regurgitation for a test. That was THE way most of us where educated, but this is so much more compelling!

There they go AGAIN, teaching by example…it really has worked with us, but this is an exceptional NTI class :) :)

Monday Night NTI

Last night was our first Monday night class, really no problems at all getting there, just a few minor glitches once inside the main building. This morning I started class and went through the portion of the cooperative learning on page 220 part 4 that we went through last night at NTI. After this I put the students in groups of three and then explained that we were going to use these groups to explain the chapter in our text books that we have just gone over. Each group was assigned three pages of the chapter to work on and they would have to give a presentation to the class on those three pages. Actually teaching those three pages to the class,this way they have to read, hear[because the other students are teaching also], they will discuss their three pages with the other students in the group, and they will actually teach someone something. It has worked out great today . All of my classes are doing this on different subjects, so far most of them are doing power point presentation, which has really impressed me. All so far are doing a very good job.

First Test!

Well, I just gave my students their first Unit test on Sound Physics. Hmmmm, probably no coincidence that this year's unit instruction was much more fun and exciting; I used many of my NTI lesson-plan activities! It has been great, and I had many more A's this year than in previous years (same test.) I had the kids write rap songs about each of the seven properties of sound waves and it was hilarious! I had fun, the kids had fun AND learned; even a counselor sat in and enjoyed! Many of my activities that had been in place for the last three years of my program have been revamped using NTI methods and this has helped immensely. I hope this year has gone well for everyone else as well and I look forward to seeing all of you in our next class meeting. Thanks again to Dr. Burns and Jesse!

Tried Something Else New

This past week, my intro. students have been working on timelines to coorespond to significant dates in healthcare history. Today we did the gallery tour and they loved it! We did it very similar to how we did it in class. They get to see their artwork on the walls and their placement was determined by what their peers thought. You see, I'm allowing them to be on the walls for their test to help them out. However, most of them forgot that as they were doing the project and you can barely see the writing for it being so small. They were all excited to see the comments and, even more so, the "awards" they won for their hard work!
What to try next? I guess I need to go back to class to learn some more tricks! :)