You need to know their starting point---not all students are at the same level. If you can determine where they are, you can formate your class to be more effective for them.
I teach English and Communications.
My approach to English is two-fold.
. First, I emphasize how English skills are
relevant to attaining career success and a job
after graduation. Writing a resume and cover
letter uses grammatical skills that will either
make or break their interview prospects.
. Secondly, I make the study of essay composition
and literature relevant to the students' chosen
profession (medical or business). I have
brought in journals that incorporate medicine
and literature together to show how the General
Education course can enlighten and move them
light years ahead of the game.
Communications
. In my Speech Communications course (connected
to English) we study inter and intrapersonal
relations, electronic communication and public
speaking techniques. I bring the relvancy of
the electronic age to my students regarding
social networking, anonyminity in chat rooms,
email etiquette and job search on the
Internet. I teach that they must speak
well in their speech assignments, to be able to
transfer that skill to the work environment.
I know that I have to keep the material relevant in order to maintain the attention span of the students. If their interest is piqued, they will listen, especially if it concerns how it will eventually affect them, as individuals.
I tailor my instruction to what I know the duty of the students are. By doing so they see a direct benefit to their learning the material thus retaining their attention and interest.
add relevant case studies to teach material
I am very interested in this topic. I teach a Kinesiology class and try to plan activities that meet a variety of learning styles. I use some lecture with powerpoint slides, palpation, we find the muscles or bones on the classroom skeleton and I have the students draw pictures of the muscles on a skeleton hand-out. I would love to hear other ideas from other Kinesiology teachers!
I teach a coding course. I bring real world scenario to the class room.
I like to do demonstrations. Then I have each student demonstrate it back to me. That way, I can determine who gets it and who needs more assistance/practice. This method is great for determining if students have mastered a certain skill and are equipped to doing it on their own without assistance.
Hi Amy,
Good strategy for your students to use. Thanks for sharing this with us. I know many other instructors can suggest this to their students as well.
Gary
I would encourage students to participate in discussions with lectures that way they can also express and share their own experience and point of views. The use of powerpoint will be a great help too in order to add visualization of what is being taught. A demonstration with hands on will enable the students to practice and make them work on right away of what was taught and learned.
I totally agree that hands on makes learning easy as this will allow students to apply learned concepts in real setting. Like in nursing, as an example, students are thought how to do intramuscular injections in the classroom in the form of lecture. Students will be better off learning this concept once they practice and apply. Having the feel of doing it in actual is different than just imagining how it is really done.
Great suggestion. It is always helpful if the students can get something in their hands that relates to the material being presented. Those hands-on activities can be even more "outside the box" than many of us think. Active reading for example seems to keep even the most easily distracted student from leaving the pages of their textbook before comprehension is achieved. The simple act of highlighting, underlining, or making notes in the margins of their texts can help students stay on track with the content. And then when there are misunderstandings they remember exactly where they occurred and are prepared to ask for assistance from the instructor.
I have found that teaching in a technical college (diploma granting) many of my students are kinesthetic learners though not all the material we have to present can be delivered thoroughly with lab work alone. So after delivering lecture-based material, I remind students of studying tips for kinesthetic learners that will help them retain the information. For example if students record themselves reading their own notes and listen to them while doing house chores (or at least walking around)they have added a kinesthetic component to their study time. This example is a bonus for the auditory / kinesthetic learner that tends to frequent our college as well.
I've taken current events and presented them in the context of the day's lesson; I've taken a well-settled case and expanded upon it with questions that may or may not change the outcome of the decision. I've used the real-life experiences of my students, and of people I know, to present the day's lesson.
I look ahead and see what visual aids I can use. Many of these come from youtube or other videos I have. i then lecture over the content. show a video to domonstrate and /or demonstrate myself and then have the students show me on another person. Of course this is easy when you teach massage therapy techniques. :-) i then have the students write out what we did step by step. This helps them retain the information.
Hi Dania,
In teaching science to non-science majors what has been some of your most successful strategies for getting them engaged and excited about the subject?
Our instructors are always looking for strategies that will work with students that have to take required courses out of their field.
Thanks.
Gary
I teach a science course to non-science majors, so I try to relate the concepts back to what they may actually be doing.
I constantly remind students that what they are learning here directly applies to what they are going to do in the field
Hi Valencia,
Will share some of these visual examples with us? So we can get some additional ideas of how to approach our own instructional delivery.
Thanks.
Gary
By being aware of the different learning preferences while planning your lessons allows you to try to find a way to relate the material to each student. Perhaps not every lesson is suitable for each preference, but one should try to accomodate each student as much as possible.
