One of my favorite ways to enhance my resume is to take courses online in my spare time. SIU offers LinkedIn Learning courses that are valuable and make you more competitive for jobs and internships. They are also free for students. As an English major, I took a course titled “Teaching Techniques: Blended Learning.”
Signing Up:
It was a very simple process to sign up. I input my email and interests for what type of course I would like to take. Next, it gave me a list of courses as well as the duration for them. This course was 1 hour and 37 minutes. In this time period, I learned quite a bit that I will apply to my teaching.
Videos:
The course consisted of short videos that I watched as well as a couple of short quizzes. The videos were of great quality and included closed captions, which is important if you are not in an environment where you can listen. It also skips to the next video once the previous one is finished, which I particularly liked. The videos gave key themes and an overview, so I knew the topic that would be discussed. They were very detailed and even showed example pictures of what was being explored.
Content:
The videos that were in my specific course defined key words and topics, explaining why they are important. I found this very beneficial as I was able to understand what the person in the video was talking about. They explained how to make videos and documents for students, which I will be doing in my classroom.
At the end of the video sections, there were a couple of quizzes. The quizzes were 5 questions and multiple choice, based on what you learned in the video. You can retake them until you get the score that you would like. In my experience, the most important concept that I learned was how to use a mobile device as a digital whiteboard for students. This makes learning easier as you can demonstrate concepts for your students to see them, even while online. I also learned things such as classroom management and the best techniques to use. This course will help me teach my students as I have more knowledge of resources that I can use online and how to use them effectively.
I definitely recommend taking a course from LinkedIn Learning. They offer many options, personalized specifically for you! Sign up for LinkedIn Learning through SIU here.
