Can the instructor's behavior have an effect on the students behavior ?

What are the key factors to deal with challenging students?

What are the key point to setting a stage of success?

How can we prepare ourselves as instructors to avoid making the common mistakes such as poor classroom manegement

What if my obstacles change over time or work synergistically against me? During the beginning of the 10-week term, I am excited about teaching Algebra to my students and even grading does not seem so bad. So, I try to get everything done right away. Since I teach part-time and tutor privately on my own, I am not really exhausted by the initial burst of effort. But then, about three weeks in, students start handing in assignments late or start to skip class one week or two and fall behind with regular quizzes as well. Despite our strict attendance policies, several students are usually late or absent. Since my class sizes always range between 3 and 10 students and retention is a big issue at my college, I become lenient and lose control of when the work gets turned in. Then, I procrastinate as I don't want to grade quiz 4 or homework number 3 on three separate occasions. Moreover, students that don't do their work on time copied off the graded assignments from those that submitted problem sets by the specified deadline. I figured this out after I saw strings of familiar errors in the late work. Needless, to say, the last 2 weeks of the term I am still grading tons of make-up work. I have tried using point deductions on late work or saying I would not accept tardy assignments, but neither strategy solved the problem. Of course, students rebelled against such policies when they consistently missed classes due to family or job conflicts. And as I said above, because retention is so important, I do cave in to avoid having several students drop the course at once. If everyone has submitted their assignments and no further quizzes need to be taken, it takes me much longer to get everything graded with all the accumulated make-ups. What can I do in this case?

I find the use of the pejorative "con-man/women" to refer to certain students rather distasteful. It seems reflective of a belief that some students are just bad people and not worth the instructional effort.

In this age of technological breakthroughs that occur very often, we as instructors have to be techno-savy. The student is barraged with information by the second. An instructor must be as rapid fire with information, reiterate the info for those who may not have absorbed it the first time, then question the qroup as a whole to observe if your information was grasped, digested, and the precept absorbed. Question any abberrations from the precept, and if necessary, reiterate with an analogy. Keep them involved, engrossed, empowered with the knowledge you are presenting.

I have found during my experience with challenging students, some either forgot or did not get the ground work or they have forgotten the necessary concepts that are needed to be applied to the current task at hand. Therefore, they become frustrated and challenging.

I can really relate to worrying about the "what ifs". I teach four hour long classes and starting out my biggest fear was, "what if I run out of material at the third hour?" I always tried to plan an extra hour's worth of material. However, now Im finding that I dont have enough time to get everything I have planned accomplished. Im starting to relax a little more and realize that it is "ok" to have a ten or twenty minute discussion that I did not include in my lesson plan.

Just a comment on this subject. I think it's important to keep the psychomotor activities within the scope of class subject matter. Class time is valuable and engaging students in activities that are not relevant mitigates any arguments you make regarding how the class benefits them in a real-world sense.

Maintaining a professional demeanor helps to set the standard by which the students should strive for.

I find it hard to deal with the alpha student! It disrupts the class and makes me frustrated.

I find it very difficult to controll adult students who become disruptive.

I like to engage the students by reversing the role and having them teach on a topic

It is important to establish rules right from the beginning on use off computers, cell phones, and all elecronics.

In today's classroom and the fluid nature of information even the worst student can trump you with the right smart phone. Admission that learning is a two way street is the best defense and a great offence as well.

I have found that once rules and expectations are established, one need only say "I" am reacting to what "you" have given me.

People are people. The examples given are caricatures. It should be a given that there are blends of the examples given and those that are missing. What of the "know it all?"

The structure of today's syllibi should reflect a paperless environment

"The problem with immediacy is that it is often self defeating", very well said, by doing everything at once leads one to commit mistakes and it slows down progress of an instructor. Prioritizing, list importance of work and doing it in order is the good way. A good point.