Technology and Teaching Styles

Figuring out how a new professor teachers or grades can be difficult sometimes. When you are in a class with a new professor, not only are you learning new material, but you are also learning that professor’s style of teaching at the same time. Then, when you take a second class with the same professor you are more prepared. In my experience, it is much easier to get a better grade with a teacher that you are already familiar than a new teacher.
Many teachers at McDaniel have been working with the new online technology. Over the summer we updated our website that has all of our classes on it. Blackboard is the site every student uses almost every day to make sure they are doing the right assignment or having a discussion on the discussion board about something related to the class. On this site we are able to upload papers to hand in digitally to our teachers, download articles our teachers want us to read for the next class, e-mail others in our class, and discuss topics all online without being in a classroom. Some teachers, especially for night classes, are using it for online classes. The discussion board allows for the class to continue even if the teacher can’t make it to campus. One of my professors has us upload a reaction paper after reading each book for class. She then makes notes and sends it back to us. It is great to have the corrections as soon as the professor finishes reading it.
Blackboard now also works on mobile devices and e-readers. This means that if you have an e-reader, you no longer have to print out articles sent over Blackboard to take into class. I love taking my e-reader into class and making notes right on the article that I can actually read and transfer back to my computer. This technology helps me so much when I am writing a paper or studying for a test. It is a great resource that I love being able to use. I also love that when I’m doing homework over breaks two hours from campus, I really only have to take my laptop and a few books home in order to get everything done because the majority of my work is usually online. The technology is just going to keep getting better and I am so excited to see what steps it takes next.