Running head: A REFLECTION ON TEACHING EXPERIENCES 1

Lessons Learned: A Reflection on Teaching Experiences

Jennifer Dulek

Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions

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Lessons Learned: A Reflection on Teaching Experiences

When I accepted my first full-time teaching position in March 2014, I expected that I

would be doing a lot of lecturing. When I later learned that my employer intended for me to

teach in a blended format, I initially expected to have to learn an entirely different set of skills

for my online lessons. What I have realized in my own teaching as well as in my experiences

this semester, though, is that most of the same teaching skills apply no matter the format.

Although one format requires a more dynamic personality and ability to communicate verbally,

and the other requires writing and technical skills, the ability to organize information, provide

clear examples, and respond to students’ individual needs are relevant to both.

In presenting the live lecture to my classmates, my goal was to balance how much

information I shared with how much I engaged the audience. This was in part due to the fact that

there is evidence indicating that students retain information better and are better able to transfer

it to other situations when a teacher provides active learning methods rather than straight lecture

(Svinicki & McKeachie, 2014). I worked hard to organize the material in a clear and logical

way, and to be prepared with examples that I could share in case participants did not contribute

their own. Throughout the presentation, I enjoyed engaging with the audience, and found that

my organization and presentation style served to build their interest and engagement. Although

working from a structured slide show presentation, I was able to make decisions about what

points to spend (or less) time on based on the audience’s response. My presentation felt smooth

and individualized, and I was pleased with how much interaction occurred within it.

As I considered how to prepare my online lesson, I chose to try something new with

software that was unfamiliar to me but seemed to hold great teaching potential. I spent a

relatively long period of time learning about the software itself, and found that Zhu and Kaplan’s
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(2014) assertion that developing materials takes longer with more complex and unfamiliar tools

is certainly true. Because of the fact that I was focused more on the technology, I did not spend

as much time on the organization of my materials as I would have liked. This led to my

neglecting to include practice-oriented examples, which I believe would have strengthened the

lesson. For this reason, I felt less pleased with this approach. Still, as with my students at work,

I appreciated the fact that participants could return to the material numerous times, and I could

include additional resources that were more difficult to include in the live lesson.

Although my experience of the live versus online presentations varied a great deal, I

think the experience of my audience and the outcomes I obtained were less variable. Participants

seemed to enjoy the online lesson and the addition of the extra materials, and their responses to

the short essay indicated that they met the learning objective in the online lesson just as they had

in the live presentation. While I felt much more comfortable with my live lecture, I can see how

the same skills I used in that presentation, if applied to my online lesson, could have resulted in

the same level of comfort and teaching effectiveness.

This realization has already changed how I approach my own teaching. I am now more

attentive the strengths and skills that have served me well in the classroom, and I am working to

find ways to incorporate those into my online lessons as well. This means being sure that my

online lessons are as organized and interactive as what I would present in the classroom, and that

as much as possible, that I tailor what I put online to what I know my specific group of students

will need. This also means spending more time becoming familiar with the teaching tools that

are available to me online so that I can create the most dynamic and organized lessons possible.

As I have made these changes, my confidence and effectiveness have already increased, and I

expect that those will continue to grow as I gain more experience with the tools available to me.
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References

Svinicki, M.D. & McKeachie, W.J. (2014). How to make lectures more effective. In M.D.

Svinicki & W.J. McKeachie (Eds.), McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and

theory for college and university teachers (pp. 58-72). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth

Cengage Learning.

Zhu, E. & Kaplan, M. (2014). Technology and teaching. In M.D. Svinicki & W.J. McKeachie

(Eds.), McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and

university teachers (pp. 232-264). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.