Instructor reducing stress
The stress in your class is depending on the instructor. The instructor will also be carefull not to bring his/her personnal issues in the class room that can be stressful to the students.
Thomas, Sounds like you have the right approach but I know executing this can be tough. Sometimes our work and personal lives collide. We are not perfect. It's ok to break down every now and then. What's most important is how we recover from these situations. Sounds like you have some good strategies for that too.
Dr. Melissa Read
This is the first thing I think of when I step through the door each morning. I make sure to never bring my personal problems to work. Personal problems and issues from home can be a huge distraction and your students will notice this immediatly. My car was broken into and I didn't discover this until I was about to leave and go to school. I had an extremly hard time calming down and focusing for the better part of the morning and at the end of the day I felt as if the entire day had been wasted. The next day I apologized to my students and made sure to go over any questions they had from the previous day and we used the day as a review of previous information. My students responded to this very well and now I always have a 'review day' scheduled. I have also started to leave a little earlier so that I have more time in the morning to get in a good mind state before my students begin to show up. This also gives me a chance to clan up and organize the lab before anyone shows up.
