Best Practices in Teaching Seminars

TOC collaborates with the School of Education and Professional Studies to sponsor Best Practices in Teaching Seminars.

The seminars described below are designed to enrich the preservice teacher participants' knowledge of the most effective educational methods and strategies to use to promote active student learning. For a more complete description, download the BPT Seminar Outline (PDF).

TOC members report that these seminars provide them with excellent information and examples of teaching methods they will implement as teachers in their own classrooms.

I. Keys to Effective Teaching

  • Seminar Presenter: Ms. Carol Rossi-Fries, 
  • Discussions and group activities focus on the essential elements of instruction.
  • Included topics: analysis of Bloom’s Taxonomy, effective classroom management, developing rewarding lessons and maintaining student interest/participation
  • Participants divide into groups to work on a project 

 

II. Field Trip to the Museum of Natural History of the Adirondacks W!LD Center, Tupper Lake, NY

  • Seminar Presenters: SUNY Potsdam Instructors and teachers from Salmon River School District
  • Participants visit the museum and learn about planning, implementing, and evaluating a field trip for classes they will be teaching
  • Participants view the film “Wild Adirondacks” and explore the museum exhibits
  • In small group sessions,   participants brainstorm ideas about using community resources to develop integrated science and literacy curricula for their classrooms.
  • Each group designs posters/presentation of their planned field trips.

 

III. Diversity Sensitivity in the Classroom

  • Seminar Presenter: Carol Kissam
  • Activity: The Luck of the Draw; participants gain understanding of others by experiencing life from another perspective through role-playing
  • Participants assume new identities, form small sharing circles, and discuss the differences in gender, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity/race, class, and physical features as well as stereotyping/discrimination
  • In a large group circle, the presenter guides students in reflecting on their role-playing experience and how this activity could be transferred for use in their classrooms.