All instructors must be confident in their ability to teach and advanced preparation with ensure a positive classroom experience.

Adding support, developing a teacher student relationship letting the student know that the instructor is the avenue to a successful classroom experience.

I am new to teaching, but my gut feeling is that it is unwise to personalize student behavior. Can you provide an explanation why a student's cheating is more often a violation of the instructor's trust, and not simply the behavior of someone trying to game the system? I can't think of a scenario where both factors are not in play. The cheating student is both gaming the system, and violating the instructor's trust.

I find that tutoring is an excellent way to help students succeed in college. In nursing programs, for instance, the traditional classroom lecture is oftentimes so voluminous and complex that students may feel overwhelmed and unable to focus. This has led me to offer tutoring to students who did not comprehend the material in class. The students are happy when their questions are answered and concepts are explained to them at a pace they can manage.

Using Excel has saved me countless hours of time. I can use the excel spreadsheet to be more efficient with my time because it allows me the tools to grade effectively and with a standard that I set for each class. What I mean is that I can have standard grading policies from one class to another and maintain a great resource through Excel to compare how students have done at the end of a grading period without having to calculate free hand notes and free hand math to calculate a final grade. This is all done in Excel for me making my time use more effective.

How do you cope with stress?

I find that stress creeps into my life and it is the result of procrastination. I find that stress results in lack of sleep for myself and my family.

I would like to share how I complete my task list for the week: 1) Most Important Items For The Week, numbered from most important on to to least important on bottom. 2) After completion on the most important items from the week I move the least important topics to the next week. I do all of this on an electronic database or my event database on my PDA or cell phone which I sink to my Outlook. Hope this adds to the conversation! Byron

I have problems remembering all my students names in a 3 week class. I am up front with my students about this. I tell them it's a mental thing and not to be hurt by it. I also tell them that while I might forget their name I will always remember their face.

I assume there are instructors employed in career schools, much like myself, teaching courses such as: English, humanities, speech, art history, and other general education courses. Some of you might also assume that non-career colleges enroll a completely different type of student--one much more eager to enroll in your literatue or writing course--trust me, not true...at all! Having taught for over ten years at community colleges, four year universities, and careeer colleges, it is my experinece that almost ALL of today's students are interested only in classes they see as directlly related to their career field of choice. Thus, accountings majors or nursing majors,attending ANY college in 2010 must be convinced by US of the importance of writing complete sentences and articulating themselves intelligently. The importance of understanding the subjects and skills we teach, including the understanding of history and many other courses not mentioned above, are usually not considered relevant. (Of course, there are always exceptions.) This student attitude is an additional challenge general education professors face that accounting instructors or instructors of nursing seldom experience. (Although I'm not insinuating such instructors do not have thier own issues with some students' expectations and attitudes.) Early in the term, I work to "sell" my courses to the students. I usually open with asking my students to guess the number one reason employees are terminated. No student has ever known the correct answer. "Most people are fired because they cannot get along with other people." This fact helps me lead into the need to understand ourselves and others, and I continue to remind them throughout whatever course it might be, that the best nurses, accountants, marketers, etc. know how to understand people by effectively communicating with them. Of course, I want my nurse to draw my blood correctly, but I also want her to show compassion--have soft skills. We know our students need not only career skills, but an education! I will not use more space explaining the many other "tactics" I use on my students to empahasize the importance of the general education courses that I teach, and for which I have great passion. Instead, I think it might be helpful if other gen education instructors shared their experience with this seemingly prevalent student attitude, perhaps offering their methods of responding to students who think general education classes are a waste of their time and money. ("Why do I have to take English when I'm going to work on computers?") Sigh. I look forward to your comments. (And I applaud all of you for your dedication to education.:) Nancy K.

That particular quarter, I had been just too relaxed in the classroom. I had the worst time with one class because they just didn't take me or deadlines seriously. It was very frustrating, but I did realize that I created my own problem. Yeah, it was fun to laugh and joke, but just not worth it!

One way to get students involved is to have participation points. Once they involve themselves in the beginning "just for the points", they will soon realize how much they enjoy working with each other and how much they can learn from one another.

I've recently moved all my grading over to excel spreadsheets, and I took the time to set up an area on the sheets that is filled with formulas that automagically calculate the students final grade based on my preset percentages for homework, tests, etc. Does anyone else do this?

I know that electronic lists are all the rage, and that I could keep my task and to-do list on the computer, or my smartphone, but I prefer to do everything on paper still. Thoughts?

I have been having a considerable amount of problems with inattentive students who prefer to text or surf the internet via their phones than participate in lecture. One of the major problems I see is that society routinely reinforces that this is acceptable behavior. I sit in meetings where the attendees will be constantly checking their phones and responding to texts...this includes the discussion leader or the boss.

How can an instructor avoid developing a "friendship" (I mean friendly rapport, nothing more) with a student if they have had the student in 4 or more classes? Occasionally I have students for a few classes in a row; they begin to tell me spouse problems, children problems, how can I avoid this?

A student was looking in her pocket during test time. I kept my eye on her and watched her do it several times. When she submitted her test, I asked her to step in the hall way with me. I confronted her and she said her mom texted her and she was looking at her phone. She then showed me the text messages. I let her go and did not accuse her of cheating. Did I do the right thing?

It is difficult to maintain a sense of humor sometimes in the classroom. How can this be accomplished in a professional manner.

One of the most difficult things is having students take courses that they can easily pass. Introduction to Computers for example is a very easy class for a computer savvy student. The students think they will not learn anything and then have trouble with engaging in the course. Those students tend to sit in the back of the room and be disruptive. I try to have those people as instructor helpers to keep them engaged and interacting with other students. It also helps the other students get another voice to help explain items that are difficult.