In the beginning a simple statement would start a huge class discussion among the students, at first I would say ok lets get back to work- After a few times I changed my statement to since we are all familiar with the topic lets go forward with a pop quiz for this section.This method has worked and now discussions are kept short and some students will say lets discuss this later before we get a pop quiz!!

These days, my stressors are many. Aside from personal life issues, I have been on unemployment for almost 2 years. I just started teaching at my career college in October. While I am thankful that I have a job, their pay scale, especially for someone who has a Masters degree such as myself, is well below what an accredited university would pay. I teach 3 classes a night, every night, and still do not make enough to come off of unemployment. As for finding a second job, I can't. Not for a lack of trying. Our economy is in such a state of disaster that employers are taking advantage. The competitive rate is now $10/hour and for those of us who live in cities like Los Angeles, that is impossible to live on. In addition to not being able to live on that wage, I get turned down for jobs anyway because I am too experienced considering I have an advanced degree. So, times are getting quite scary. I stress out often but when I get to work at night and teach, I become so calm. Even with the problem students. The frustrate me but I don't get stressed. I love teaching and I love that most of my students love to learn in my class. It calms me in so many ways and I am thankful that I have that outlet.

I teach at an institution where most all of our classes require students to be on their laptops and most likely online during class. This makes it very challenging to keep students on topic when the subject matter gets a bit dry. Even the best students seem to multi task when they are on a computer and almost always have open their email or Facebook on another window. Do you have any ideas for keeping students off of Facebook and other distracting sites during class time?

I have some students that are just plain lazy. They want everything handed to them. It seems the farther they get into the course they feel that we owe them what ever they need to get a good grade.

I've been a post it note person forever. I've adapted Evernote and Wunderlist to my daily routine and seen a vast improvement in not only time management but actually finishing lists instead of pushing them to another day. I use Evernote for lesson plans and grade sheets. I use my camera phone to shoot the white board at the end of each class and tag it for the course. Then I use these photo notes to improve my lesson plan. Wunderlist allows you to make categories and give tasks a due date or not. I have lists for work, home, family, groceries and so on. If I need something as simple as toilet paper, I put a due date on it. The nice part about Wunderlist is having it ability to only see what is due today...from any list. So you may have 5 items or 20 due on a certain day, but you don't have the distraction of seeing everything you have on your list for the next week month or longer all at once. The beauty of both of them is the "cloud". They are all sync'd to my phone, laptop and desktop so I can work anywhere. Stuck in line at the bank...fix a note.

How do you go about creating a neat and organized work area when the instructor you are sharing the space with is not cooperative or organized?

I show a hands on DVD and after 5 minutes students start to fall asleep.

One of the biggest compliants i receive from students is the struggle they go through to manage school wrk and their home life.

common mistakes by instructors are they get too comfortable with the students, and become too friendly to them. That interferes with them trying to keep their perspective straight.

Managing your students takes alot of patience and understanding.

Dealing with a challenged student, takes a lot of patient and working one on one with them!

Success is measured by how hard you work to get your goals achieved!

We are a couple weeks into the term and I have a student in lecture/discussion who talks alot. Mostly just staccato comments. Other class members say he has done this all through the program. The other class members roll their eyes when he remarks. I have given the student eye contact so he knows I hear and see him. If he is saying things that do not seem germane to the lecture/discussion, I say, "Joe, here has a point to make." Joe then comments, but I have noticed that asking him to expand on his comment reduces the number of interruptive comments he makes thereafter. Any other advice?

Are we the Teacher who are responsible for students who cause problems in our classroom? Are the Teachers suppose to teach the class clowns, the loud and disrespectful ones who trying to show their peers they are incharge? Are we the Teachers who suppose to show them love and understanding? What do you do to solve this problem?

The first class I ever taught left me feeling ill prepared. After the first week, a student came to me at the end of class and whispered, "If you do more than just stand there when you lecture, those guys will pay attention. We like the subject, we just think you're boring". It was a rude awakening, but it made me think about how the class was seeing me, and make changes.

It is hard to teach someone who is repeating a class and thinks they know everything. How would you address that person?

Cheating is done at different levels. When do you expect more?

I see new faculty who want to be a friend of the students. We have had to make a rule that faculty cannot be a Facebook friend with any student. Being involved in social media with a student adds a completely different dimension to the student/faculty relationship. The faculty learn things about the student they should not know and the student learns things about the faculty they should not know. Being a friend of the student in any way is a mistake.

I find I have a student who tells me he has been allowed by other instructors to turn in his papers late without consequence. I reviewed verbally with the student that papers late will be lowered in grade, etc. The assignment was described in the syllabus. The assignment was gone over in class. The assignment was gone over in lab. A reminder of the due date was given both in class and in clinical group. The assignment was due yesterday. At clinical the student mentioned he had trouble emailing me the paper. I told him to bring it in and hand it to the administrative assistant if he could not email it. Now the paper is one day late. I do not have it. I am prepared to mark the paper down 5% a day. My guess is he will say there is a computer glitch. I received all the other students' papers. Can I say he should have checked to see that the paper was sent before he concluded it was especially if he was having "trouble" emailing it to me? This is really happening today.

My approach is simple, effective and "fun". On day one I explain my cell phone policy. If they are expecting an "emergency call" they can have the phone on vibrate and quitely exit the classroom to take the call. Otherwise, if thier cell phone goes off or if they are caught texting, anyone in the classroom can yell "treat" and that student is responsible for bringing something in for everyone the next class period. Of course cost is a consideration and something like a piece of inexpensive candy, a piece of gum etc. is acceptable.