Barry Westling

Tammy, I agree we have to be real. But when disengaged students persist for lengthy periods or are distracting other students, that's the time to exercise some instructor intervention, such as doing a change up, moving to a discussion, asking specific students questions, or maybe taking a break. Anything that breaks the non-productive flow and gets students back on track. Barry Westling

Tammy, I like the flexibility in personality styles you describe. I feel like we have to be genuine versions of ourselves, but that doesn't mean we can't adapt to different settings. Sizing up a class or a class setting in order to best reach all of the students is a skill that good instructors will practice. Barry Westling

Tammy, Yes, feeling a sense of autonomy in the instructional process is important with adult learners. I think that's why variety of instructional strategies, activities, and resources is good as it captures more of the different learning styles that are likely to be present in a given class. Barry Westling

Amy, Very true sentiment. Too often instructors get caught up in what they want to say or how they want to teach, but fail to consider if the methods and activities are helping their students learn. Barry Westling

Gerardo, Your grading system sounds good. We want to measure learning, and the balance between the different components is critical so as to not give more weight to a less important component, or less weight to a essential component. Although some feel giving points for professionalism merely skews grades upward, I feel this is an important category, and although different from academic measurement, it does measure conformance to specific rules and guidelines that students will need for successfulness in the workplace. Barry Westling

Lynne, Yes, we want to use the evaluation system that best measures student performance, knowledge, and skill. As in your example, a written test for a task is less effective in measuring the skill involved. Barry Westling

Mike, I agree, it's not only appropriate but necessary that sharing grade information occur. And in my opinion, that should be early on, frequent and current. With current knowledge of status, students are able to make needed adjustments to study and readiness. And when done early enough, that should provide time for cor corrections to have an impact on their performance. Barry Westling

Lynne, Your rats tricks sounds interesting! Yes, creative instructors will find every available resource to use to help their student learn. That's what make learning fun and dynamic. Barry Westling

Liz, I'm with you. Grades should reflect accuracy in learning. Giving away points doesn't do too much in that regard. Barry Westling

Mike, Yes, that is one good reason why some students tune out. Good instructors should be sensitive to this. And to this post, they can do things like pretesting to determine how much emphasis is needed on what topics. Barry Westling