Susan's Issues in Class Case Study

1. Description of the Issues in Class

Susan's class is having many issues which make it sometimes difficult to progress. The students feel bored in her class. Also, they think that the class is irrelevant. At the same time, students think Susan is not respecting what they know. Also, students think Susan does not recognize the fact that they are old. They feel that Susan is approaching the class as though they are 20 years old. More so, the students feel they are just continuing the class for their licensure or because they paid for it and it is too late to receive their funds. It even appears that the students are not ready to submit the assignment she had given out. Susan is experiencing most of these issues because she is not giving the students adequate time to participate in class activities. She should be in a position of admitting that even though she has a Ph.D., "experience is always the best teacher."All these students have worked for years in various activities and contained a wealth of experience which they can share in class. If Susan engages students well in class and allows them to participate, and even offer oral assignment instead of writing essays, this class would be livelier.

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Why Susan Is Having Issues with this Particular Section of the Course and my Suggestions

Susan is having problems with this course because of the many weaknesses which she does not admit to currently. The students are feeling bored because they are not being engaged well in class. They are not given the opportunity to share their thoughts, insights, and ideas on how they want to be taught. For instance, Army, one of the students, admits that Susan is knowledgeable, but she does not give the students the opportunity to participate in class. She explains her stuff, gives out assignment and leaves. Such sentiments are echoed by Anita who complains that Susan is assuming that her students know nothing. That means Susan is not meeting students expectations even though she is skilled in the discipline. She risks losing students because they feel they are being wasted. Susan, therefore, requires incorporating specific techniques in her class to ensure it remains lively. First, she should understand the nature of her class. Her class comprises of old students, some as old as 66 years. Such people are already retired and are interested in expressing their views and sharing knowledge, experiences, and insights with not only her but also the rest of the class. Second, Susan needs to make the class lively by interacting freely with students. She should gauge the levels of understanding by engaging students and allow them to suggest how they want to be taught (Mezirow, 1991).

Then, she should give convincing reasons why their advanced method is either practical or not as much as the class is concerned. Third, she should allow them to do an assignment in groups during the class and present their answers orally. This method is better than giving them essays to write ( Zimmerma & Schunk, 2014). Some of these students are busy and can hardly find time to write these essays. Another suggestion that I make is that Susan should allow students to evaluate her teaching skills for every class. She should be giving out questionnaires which would assist her to gauge the level of appreciation from her students. She should be quick to admit her weaknesses which students address in these evaluation tools and work on them immediately. In case they are not reasonable enough, she should be ready to discuss why such issues cannot be resolved as far as that class is concerned. According to me, these are old students with a wealth of knowledge and ideas, which would assist not only Susan but also the rest of classroom students. If Susan engages these students well, she can gain a lot as a tutor and improve on her weaknesses. She can as well win these students because they are adults who can quickly understand issues and circumstances when they arise.

2. Specific Strategies Susan Can Use for This Section of the Course in This Class

Direct observations-Under direct observations, a teacher studies the student behavior to gauge the effectiveness of the learning (Arends & Castle, 1991). Susan can find this technique very useful because she can easily monitor student behavior and address the issue that faces them. For instance, her students complain that the class is boring. If she observes that the students are behaving strangely, she should inquire about the cause of the issue and address it immediately. Therefore, Susan should observe the way student react regarding complains, interrupting her while teaching, responses, for instance, after giving them an assignment and even how the student responds when she enters the class. She should be quick to identify such traits and note whether students are happy with her teaching methods or not. She should then seek suggestions from the students and address their issues immediately.

Oral responses-Oral response is one of the most effective methods of evaluation in classrooms (Schunk, 2012). Susan can utilize this method by asking as many questions as possible during her lesson. She should then gauge the level of understanding of her students based on how they can answer them. She should then address those problems or questions which seem confusing to the students. She should also seek verbal feedback from students about how they rate his teaching regarding student engagement and liveliness.

Rating by others-Rating by others strategy involves a student or even a tutor being evaluated by another party (Schunk, 2012). But in most cases, students are rated by their teachers. Susan can utilize this technique by evaluating the strength of students to solve various problems. She can conduct random assessment test and mark it promptly in class. By doing so, she can quickly note the strength of each student and assist them at personal levels. Also, she can submit herself for rating by students through the use of questionnaires so that they can learn the weak points and improve. She can also give out short assignments online, mark and submit the papers through email. Comments and possible ways to improve can accompany the papers.

3. Model Lesson on Learning Theories

Topic Long-term Memory:Retrieval

Subject/course Education/Designing an Intervention

Course Materials Book: learning Theories;7th Edition by Dale H,Schunk, smart board projector, stylus pen for pointing specific point where she want to actress

Lesson objectives Students to understand the impact of the retrieval process in learning

Students to understand and apply the retrieval processes which include retrieval strategies, Encoding Specificity, Retrieval of declarative knowledge, retrieval of Procedural Knowledge. Students should be in a position to use technology like email, powerpoint to send and present their responses

Strategies to meet diverse learners needs Susan has to bear in mind that these are diverse students, ranging from 30 to over 60 years. Therefore, such students have valued interests and experiences. Therefore, she should be in a position to apply various strategies to meet the needs of such students so that she does not lose or bore either of them. Therefore, for the lesson on Long-term memory retrieval, Susan should employ various strategies which include engagement, exploration, explanation, Elaboration, and evaluation.

Proper student Engagement Students should participate actively. They should be allowed to present their view and assignments in class, orally or use of PowerPoint slides

Susan can start by inquiring the meaning of retrieval by students and hear their responses. She should, however, focus on a time limit so that any student with an answer has something to say about the topic

Then, Susan should introduce the topic on retrieval strategies and ask the class whether they are already aware of them

By the end of the lesson, they should at least request any volunteer students to explain to the class how the summary of the topic according to how they have understood

She should also be keen on answering specific inquiries from a student because some might not have appreciated some concepts

Another way she can engage the student is asking oral and discussion questions which students can answer in class. For instance, "describe the retrieval processes and how they are applied in learning."

Another way she can engage the students is by presenting them with written questions which they can do in groups and submit the group responses in class. She can them request each group to evaluate the performance of the other and praise or even criticise where they note the responses were not precise.

Exploration/direct assessment Susan can easily gain students insight by talking and observing students as they do their class assignments. Instead of allowing students to do assignment alone, she should give them while in class and note how they tackle each question. If the time is sufficient, she can mark and evaluate the capability of each student and guide them on how they would have arrived at expected answers. Direct observation will assist Susan to hear views from individual students and address them at personal levels. She can easily handle complains at this level.

Explanation Susan should clearly explain the meaning of any technical term

The concepts like coding, specificity, retrieval of declarative knowledge and retrieval of procedural expertise should be described in details. These are essential retrieval strategies which students can apply in answering questions, for instance, why and how we remember the names of people, phone numbers, and some general questions automatically.

Elaboration The elaboration would entail the addition of information taught with examples, details, and inferences. Students will be in a position to remember the content if examples and inferences are involved in teaching. Therefore, Susan should elaborate on the situations where retrieval knowledge is applied, for instance, when one remembers phone calls and names of people.

Evaluation Here, Susan should utilize assessment methods to evaluate the students and at the same time, allow students to evaluate her performance. For instance, the direct observation will enable her to note the behavior and gauge how students understand the topic. In case students are complaining, she will note that students have not captured a specific topic and addressed it again. She can also use this method to note the students who have either understood and the slow learners so that she can assist them at personal levels. She can also use written responses by giving them continuous assessment tests (CAT) and mark it within the shortest time possible. Then evaluate the capability of each student and make him/her understand the concepts better. The oral responses will be practical for evaluation purpose (McLaren, 2015). Susan should random questions to students at the end of the lesson to gauge the level of their understanding. She should also allow students to evaluate her through the use of assessment tools like questionnaire and face to face critics. She should be ready and willing to note and correct mistakes and utilize techniques which favor the requirements of the students.

4. Revised Assignment

i) Discuss any of the theories learnt in class so far

ii) How relevance is the theory to you as a student

iii) Do you think the theory is applicable in your classroom? If yes, how?

v) How can the theory be applied in education setting?

The assignment pages should range from 3-7 pages

When the question is set as I have done above, it does not limit students to significant points in the theory because some might not be in a position to differentiate the critical points from other points the tutor had talked about...