Hello, and welcome to Education 510 511: Apprentice Teaching and Debriefing Seminar My name is Ann Diver-Stamnes, and I'm a professor in the School of Education at Humboldt State University. On Moodle you'll find some introductory information about me, and of course, I like to get to know a bit about you as well as we start the semester together. So I'm asking that you create your own short introductory video and then upload that onto the Moodle forum If you have questions about how to do that, there's a handout on Moodle that will assist you with that process, so that we can all begin to get acquainted. I wanted to give you an overview for the course for this semester You'll be doing apprentice teaching, and that apprentice teaching will include six hours of solo instruction. And you'll be completing what is called a "teaching event" and the teaching event contains these five elements: the Context for Learning, which looks at the community in which your school resides: your school, your class, and the specifics of students within your class, specific demographics of students in your class It will include your instructional planning two video clips of your teaching and assessments of your students' work and finally reflections on what you learned through the process of completing your teaching event. There are resources to assist you this semester... quite a few of them... Many of them, in fact most of them, will be on Moodle. So take a look at Moodle, get very familiar with it... I've tried to create a Moodle site that is very user friendly and accessible, but if there's anything that you would like to have me add or switch just email me or call me or meet with me during office hours, and I can certainly do everything I can to accommodate you. There's also the handbook, the Teaching Event handbook, that I wrote for you and that gives you a step-by-step introduction to each aspect of the teaching event, and so make sure that you have that as you complete each of the aspects the context, the planning, instructing, assessing and reflecting that will really, really help you to make sure you get all aspects of those completed The third resource is TaskStream and you've been using TaskStream in the other classes in the College Faculty Preparation Program you'll be using it quite extensively this semester to upload each aspect of your teaching event and it becomes really important this semester because you will be uploading video of your students and TaskStream is a secure electronic platform so that we can ensure that we protect those videos with your students' images on them The syllabus obviously has information and is a good resource for you on a quick overview of due dates, et cetera and then I am very hopeful that I will be a good resource for you this semester I'll have office hours in what's called "Elluminate" and I can explain that You can reach me via email, via telephone, and if you happen to be in town, via face-to-face appointments, as well. And just email me or call me and we can set up those times Your mentor teacher will be one of your biggest resources this semester, and that's the person who will be working with you in your classroom as you do the teaching, giving you feedback and that's the person who has the discipline-specific content knowledge that will be so important as you go through your apprentice teaching this semester And, of course, your colleagues in our Education 510/511 community also will be able to share their experiences, they'll be able to talk about what's working, what's not working, suggestions for how to improve practice So really rely, we'll all rely on one another this semester And the final people would be colleagues at your institution. Don't just seek out people within your own department. Look to people who are excellent teachers in a variety of departments across your particular campus and those people can certainly share their tips for what makes, and what constitutes, excellence in teaching So what is it that you need to do for this week? Well, the first thing is you're going to need to read the Overview and Context for Learning information in the Handbook, and those are the first two chapters in the Handbook You're also going to be reading information on mentor teacher responsibilities and solo teaching Again, there's a handout on this on Moodle, and I suggest that, as well, that you share this with with your mentor teacher right away so your mentor teacher knows the kinds of activities and responsibilities that that person will be required and also what the requirements are for you over the course of the semester. So you can send it as an email attachment, it's a PDF on Moodle, or you can also print a hard copy for your mentor. There are a variety of course documents on Moodle, so really familiarize yourself with the layout on Moodle and those documents And then what should you do this week? Make sure you're registered for this semester on TaskStream and schedule a meeting with your mentor. Do this right away so that you can immediately launch into your apprentice teaching. You're going to be determining the topic of your solo teaching - so what is it that you'll be teaching about. And that will be useful as you create your instructional planning. And then you're going to decide on a date for your solo teaching and it should occur between week six of the semester and for it to occur right at week six make sure that you've completed all of your instructional planning, that you've submitted those plans to your mentor teacher, that your mentor teacher has vetted them and given you feedback and then you're ready to go! So between weeks six and eight, that's when you should be doing it. So that's the time period in the semester, you want to make sure that you plan it with your mentor so that you know exactly when you'll be doing those six hours of solo teaching. You're going to, this week, upload your introduction to the forum on Moodle And, finally - enjoy! Teaching is, in my estimation, the best profession possible! And so, I'm hoping that this introduction to the profession and to your first solo teaching will, indeed, be a completely enjoyable and marvelous experience for you throughout the semester! So the next steps Make sure you keep in close touch with me via Moodle, email, telephone... any form whatsoever that you'd like to utilize but make sure you monitor Moodle very carefully, because Moodle will give you the obsolute overview of what you need to do, and what you need to be planning to do in the near future as well as the objectives for what you should be able to do when you complete that particular portion of the course. If there's any additional resources that you'd like to have me upload on Moodle, let me know, I'm happy to do so! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns you can meet me in ElluminateLive and those will be online, real-time office hours The instructions for signing up for those office hours and connecting via Elluminate are on Moodle and it's a very simple procedure where you basically just click the office hour link for that week, and it will take you into the room where I will be waiting to meet with people you will see when you come into ElluminateLive you'll see my name... if you see somebody else's name then you'll know that someone is there before you, and just give me a minute to finish up with that person and then I will immediately come to you and activate your microphone and your video, and there is a link on Moodle for you to sign up for those office hours, as well, so you can sign up for time-specific so you don't have to wait because I know that your time is precious So, finally, all I have to say is welcome to our Education 510 511 community! I'm very much looking forward to working with you this semester and I wish you a very happy start to Fall Semester 2012!