Joe Ruhl's Methodology

Joe Ruhl – Teacher, Biology, Genetics, and Science Research courses

I have one of the best jobs in the world, because I get to work with people

who are fun, funny, energetic, creative and insightful. They happen to be 14

to 18 years of age. I really do think kids keep a person young and I think

that’s probably why when I’m in the presence of adults, I sometimes don’t

know how to act, so you’ll forgive me.

So inspiring the students of the future. What really works? 37 years of

teaching experience have taught me that two things are needed. Research-based

teaching techniques and relationship. Relationship is huge, but we’ll talk

more about that later. What I’d like to look at first are the techniques.

I think probably most of us remember the teacher-centered classroom. This is

probably what we’re familiar with from our youth. You remember the teacher

was up front in the center. The students were in nice neat rows, not allowed

to talk to each other. And the teacher, the source of authority, downloaded

information to the kids who regurgitated it back up on a test designed to

measure how much content they could remember.

Passion, love are important to Ruhl, A well-organized consistent discipline plan is important. Effective use of technology is important. The standards are important but please don’t let them stifle your creativity. All these things are important but what the kids are going to remember most of all is you. Don’t forget that 6th C: Caring. That is the most effective, most powerful, most inspiring way of teaching, getting their attention, motivating them, inspiring them.

So what’s really important: how do we motivate, how do we inspire, allow kids to involve themselves in the classroom in student choice, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity. But don’t forget that 6th C. It’s probably the most important one because the greatest of these is love, with this words finish Ruhl.

Joe Ruhl has found some effective methods that will inspire new generations of students. He calls them the “Five C’s” and in a nutshell, he recommends these five easy-to-remember elements that you can integrate into your course design to help inspire student learning:

1. Choice (e.g. a variety of different projects)
2. Collaboration (teamwork)
3. Communication – (collaborative)
4. Critical thinking (problem solving)
5. Creativity (encouraging innovation)

VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

A virtual classroom is a teaching and learning environment where participants can interact, communicate, view and discuss presentations, and engage with learning resources while working in groups, all in an online setting. The medium is often through a video conferencing application that allows multiple users to be connected at the same time through the Internet, which allows users from virtually anywhere to participate.

A virtual classroom is also known as a virtual learning environment (VLE).

A virtual classroom has the following advantages:

• Students are not limited to the courses available in their geography.
• Learning is more interactive as its nature forces the student's attention.
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It has the following disadvantages, however:

• In the case of supervised classes, the schedule may be an issue to some students.
• It is limited by the technological capacity of the student; those with slower hardware or Internet speeds are at a disadvantage.