AEE 528 - Instructional Design and Course Development in Agricultural Education
Instructor's response to Exercise 1
I have had a lot of classes over the years, but I recall one teacher that I had for two courses in high school. In our government class, he made it very realistic. For example during January and February when our state legislature was meeting, we conducted a mock legislature several days a week. We proposed new legislation, had committee hearings, presented arguments, and voted on the bills. Rather than either listening to his lecture about how a bill becomes a law or studying a chart of the process, we had a chance to experience the process that was also aided with a trip to state legislature. The psychology class was not quite as exciting as it was lecture driven. We did not get to conduct any experiments on animals or people, psychoanalyze our classmates, or create subliminal videotapes.
What made the instruction "good" instruction in the government class? It was the active learning with real world examples. Each student had the opportunity to write a bill and then move it through the process including watching the teacher/governor sign it or veto it. We created some very unusual legislation, but it made more sense to us than tracking a bill dealing with funding for the improvement of downtown area of town we had never visited on the other end of the state. Studying Pavlov's conditioning experiments with dogs was interesting, but made little sense. If we had connected the concept of conditioning with our own dogs running to the kitchen at the sound of the can opener, we might have been able to better relate to and understand the concept.
Return to Class 1