Elaine,
Keep up the good work in the area of "soft skill" development. These skills are critical for career success as we all know. Many times students forget this component of their career and then they have problems in the workplace.
Gary
That sounds like an excellent idea. The thought of video forces them to focus specifically on the task at hand.
I start the course by discussing the future of the IT industry. I stress the point that as an IT professional you do not have to know everything IT.
Think about your IT career as if you are a doctor. No one doctor knows everything, they specialize in a particular area and utilize other professionals to assist them with moving parts that affect there specialty.
From this point I expand into the many areas of Specialites within IT. I learned this method because I noticed students seemed to be overwhelmed with unnecessary expectations. No one person is the master at everything, we speaclize in an area and rely on other professional resources to assist us in completing our projects.
I agree. It is important to be there everyday in order for questions and concerns to be addressed. It also important to make sure students feel they are not in this alone. I encourage my students to network with each other and I keep myself available at all times.
I love the course I teach and have been teaching for over 25 years. I think my interest in the material comes through to the students. I am able to share practical examples of how the material we are learning directly applies to the job they are seeking.I offer alot of hands on activities that allow the students to apply what they've learned during the lecture portion of the course.
Give them real life based situations and how the things they are learning can be applied to them
I keep my students motivated by being excited about my subject mater
I think the most important thing is to always walk into your class with a positive and enthusiastic attitude. If I am not excited about my career, then I can't expect my students to be excited to learn either. I like to use guest speakers and take students on field trips to stimulate their interest, and I am a big proponent of role playing. I am a criminal justice instructor so I take an hour of class time to conduct role playing exercises with props. I explain the lesson, the goal behind the exercise,then assign students a role with accompanying script. While they are reviewing their roles, I encourage each student to ad lib from the script to make it more interesting. They absolutely love this and some students are quite clever with their acting. This is exciting for me because it brings out the unique personalities of each student and helps them to think outside the box when it's time to solve the role playing situation.
I also teach the "soft skills" which can be challenging as most career college student would prefer to go directly to clinical classes without an appreciation of developing character, personality, and interpersonal skills along the way. Making classes fun, relevant, challenging and engaging from day one helps to motivate and encourage students.
I approach writing by giving them a writing workshop first and showing them how much they know vs. how much they don't know. I gain their confidence slowly by giving them exercises which can be completed easily then slowly bring them up to college level. I find they really enjoy this type of teaching. The slower the better, yet moving the students along at a pace that will meet the requirements of the school and where they don't feel rushed. I am currently publishing the student's narrative essays through Create Space and I am finding their motivation level to write has increased.
Motivating beginning keyboarding students has been a bit challenging for me. I have found that my students are bored and frustrated at times. Reassuring them that completing the practice activities will improve their speed and accuracy is not enough to motivate them. Allowing them to walk away from their computer when they need an extra break has helped. I’m opened to suggestions.
Laurie,
When such a situation comes up I talk with the student individually and review the work that has been submitted. Then I tell him/her that I want to commend them for their work and in order to do so I need the follow things from them. Then I outline the specifics of what it takes for successful project completion, knowing they already know this but I review it with them one more time. Then I set deadlines for segments of the work to be completed. This way I can coach them at different stages so when they are through with the project there should be a quality of work that I can complement them on. This all depends of course on their willingness to put forth the effort to be successful.
Gary
The students get more interested when hands-on projects are included in a segment of learning. When I tell students they will be recorded and posted on YouTube, they become more concerned about the quality of their work. Besides, hands-on work makes the lecture come to life.
Yes, positive feedback makes anyone feel better, even the instructors. But every once in a while, a student's work is so bad, I can't think of anything. So what do you do?
Mary,
Good use of relevant and current events to reinforce the content of your course. This shows the students how they can apply what they are learning to their everyday lives.
Gary
I find the best way to motivate students about my class is to keep a positive attitude - about the course and in general. There are many times the information is not the most exciting, but if you try to keep upbeat and positive, it will be contagious. No one wants to be in a course with an instructor who lacks enthusiasm and seems to be apathetic in general.
It depends on the class and the subject. When I teach Anatomy my students are expected to construct the heart out of clay. I tend to make this a contest and they usually work in groups of 3-4, depending on how many are in the class. I also believe in encouraging students to learn. I always tell them when they have done great in class and give my thanks for making it a good day. Some people need extra encouragement and even on a daily basis.
The two main types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic, can affect the learning process. Intrinsic motivation is task motivation that derives from an inherent interest in the learning tasks while extrinsic motivation refers to the external influences that affect the strength of learner’s motivation such as that which comes from teachers and parents.
I so understand and my students will even say to the one speaking..."did your lightbulb finally work?" As the commercial goes, "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas".....well we say what happens at clinicals only comes to the classroom. Hearing their peers discuss the positives and negatives of each day's clinical experiences, is learning and sharing at its best.
One thing I use is current events. For the student to realize that the medical world plays a role in everyone's life and is seen 100% of the time. An example would be when former Senator Kennedy had his seizure and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. We talked about his health and then the positive and negative factors that occured that affected the patient(Sen. Kennedy), his family, the government and all the citizens of the USA. Another was the shooting in AZ with again the government being a factor.
