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Ask a question from your peers to help you in your professional work. Seek different points of view on a topic that interests you. Start a thought-provoking conversation about a hot, current topic. Encourage your peers to join you in the discussion, and feel free to facilitate the discussion. As a community of educators, all members of the Career Ed Lounge are empowered to act as a discussion facilitator to help us all learn from each other.

Female students vs male students

I teach in a field that is predominately dominated by males. In my classes, the proportion on female students is reflective of the industry--very low. i don't exactly know for sure, but it's probably less than 5%. Should I view or treat them any differently? Should I make extra effort to reach out to them or try and view them equally? Thanks.

Respect and participation

In an adult class setting it's important to establish trust and indepence to allow the students think and act as independent and responsible learners while treating them with respect.

Cultural Diversity

It is important to recognize the student cultural differences and weaknesses in order to better guide and support the student through their career path while overcoming any cultural shock or challenges in their training.

how to motivate lazy students

1 Reward your students for participating in class. These rewards don't have to be fancy; a simple "good job" is often enough to make a student feel great. The more a student experiences that inner feeling of accomplishment, the more motivated they will become. 2 Establish a connection with your students. A teacher who makes students feel comfortable and confident creates a safe environment. Students need to feel safe; they need to understand that it's okay if they get an answer wrong. 3 Create opportunities for student participation. Don't just lecture at your students--get them involved. Modify lesson plans to make assignments more active and engaging. Can you turn a lecture into a class discussion or a game? An energetic lesson that gets students involved is a great way to motivate them and help them learn. 4 Give students choices. They need to feel like they have some power and control over their educational experience. Incorporate a degree of flexibility into your assignments so students can choose how to participate, and thus feel actively involved. For extra credit, let them do projects on subjects that interest them even if they are not part of regular class study. 5 Have students work together. Most people like to spend time with other people. Completing projects as part of a team gives students the chance to feel like they belong and can motivate lazy students to contribute more. 6 Demonstrate how lessons relate to students' lives. If they understand how something affects them personally, they are more likely to pay attention to the lesson. Take events out of the newspaper and pop culture, and have the class analyze them for life lessons.

How to set the stage for learning

It’s not always easy keeping your students motivated in the classroom. Luckily, there are a variety of techniques and strategies that teachers can use to motivate their students. And with a little time, patience and hard work, you can definitely motivate your students to succeed in school. 1 Determine why your students are not motivated. There are different reasons why students may lack motivation, such as having low self-esteem, problems at home, a learning disability, health issues or depression. Be sure to evaluate each student’s situation and try to find out the main reason for the lack of motivation. 2 Evaluate your teaching strategies and make the necessary adjustments. Take time to review your current teaching style and curriculum and decide if there are some things that you can do differently in order to better motivate your students. For example, maybe you can add more group activities to the class period, or perhaps you can use more visual aids to enhance your lectures. Try to be as creative as possible and make learning a fun experience for your students. 3 Show enthusiasm in the classroom. In order to motivate students, the teacher should be motivated as well. It is very important for teachers to get excited about the classroom lectures and activities, because this helps to gain the students' attention and keeps them interested in learning. 4 Tell your students that you have faith in them. Try to give your students challenging and achievable assignments to complete and provide them with the emotional support that they need to do well in class. And don’t be afraid to set high expectations for your class. Constantly remind your students that you believe in them. 5 Encourage your students to participate in class. Some students enjoy participating in class activities and discussions, while others may shy away from the attention. However, it is important that all students have an opportunity to participate in some kind of way. So try going around the classroom and calling on students one by one to answer questions and to complete various tasks. 6 Reward students for doing a good job in class. Students love to get rewarded for their good work and behavior.

Increasing the class participation

While increasing participation is an obvious goal in courses that include frequent discussions and small-group work, it is also important in a lecture course. In short, if only a few students participate by volunteering answers, asking questions, or contributing to discussions, class sessions become to some extent a lost opportunity to assess and promote learning. You can improve student participation in your course by devoting time and thought to shaping the environment and planning each class session. Furthermore, the way in which you interact, both verbally and non-verbally, communicates to students your attitude about participation. Ideally, the goal of increasing participation is not to have every student participate in the same way or at the same rate. Instead, it is to create an environment in which all participants have the opportunity to learn and in which the class explores issues and ideas in depth, from a variety of viewpoints. Some students will raise their voices more than others; this variation is a result of differences in learning preferences as well as differences in personalities. For example, some students who do not speak often in class are reflective learners, who typically develop ideas and questions in their minds before speaking; others are shy students who feel uncomfortable speaking in front of groups (at least initially). Many students who frequently volunteer to contribute are active learners, who typically think while they speak. The instructor’s goal is to create conditions that enable students of various learning preferences and personalities to contribute. To reach this goal, you will need to take extra steps to encourage quiet students to speak up and, occasionally, ask the more verbose students to hold back from commenting in order to give others a chance. This handout is divided into the following sections: Shaping the Environment Planning Listening and Responding Links and References Shaping the EnvironmentReserve a classroom that will accommodate the kind of participation you have in mind. Starting on the first day of class, arrange the room in a way that encourages active engagement. When it is time to reserve a classroom, keep in mind not only the number of student chairs you will need, but also whether these chairs should be moveable. If you lead frequent discussions, consider moving the chairs into a circle or “U” to ensure that students can see, and speak to, one another. If you are teaching in a large lecture hall, consider asking students to move so that they are concentrated near the front of the room. Move the chairs back to their standard configuration at the end of class (in University-managed classrooms, see the diagram posted near the door). Make clear from the beginning your expectation that students will participate. On the first day of class, explain what you see as valuable about class participation. Indicate that you want to do all you can to ensure that the classroom dynamics and activities support full participation, including calling on students who do not raise their hands and sometimes asking frequent contributors to allow others to have a chance. Ask students to inform you if you can make any changes to improve the classroom dynamics and rates of participation. On the first day of class, give students a clear idea of what to expect regarding participation. If you plan to lecture each day with pauses for questions and discussion, do so on the first day; if you plan to lead more extended discussions, then do so on the first day (see Tips for Teaching on the First Day of Class). Consider whether you will assign a grade to students’ performance in discussions so that they understand the importance of participating. If you do plan to grade participation, inform students of the specific criteria that you will use. For example, will you evaluate the frequency and quality of their contributions, as well as how effectively they each respond to others’ comments? Will you include in each participation grade the student’s performance on informal writing, online discussions, minor group projects, or other work? Grading student participation is especially important, and usually essential, in discussion courses (see Teaching with Discussions). Learn and use students’ names. Students will be more engaged if they believe that you perceive them as individuals, rather than as anonymous members of a group. Encourage students to learn one another’s names, as well; this strategy will increase the possibility that they will address one another by name and direct their comments to one another, not just to you. Return to top. PlanningIn a discussion course, assign to your students some of the responsibility for increasing participation by all. For example, on the first day of class, you might tell students your goals for class participation (e.g., informed and lively discussions in which everyone participates) and ask them to come up with a list of guidelines that will help the class reach this goal. Typically, they will generate excellent guidelines such as “do not interrupt others when they are talking” and “critique the ideas; don’t criticize the person.” Post this list on the course Web site and hand it out in class. Students who feel invested from the beginning in making the discussions successful will be more likely to work together to increase participation. Consider requiring students to lead discussions or to submit discussion questions before class. Provide guidance and assess student performance on these tasks (assigning a score, for example, that forms a part of the class participation grade.) In discussion courses in which you are having trouble getting students to participate, consider asking students to submit anonymous comments on class participation as well as suggestions on how to get more people involved; often, they will let you know that there are problems with the classroom dynamics that you may not see yourself (such as that some students resent the “domination” of discussion by one or two others) or that the structure of the discussions has become too predictable or formulaic. Use a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, discussions, and small-group work. If you are teaching a lecture course, set aside time during each lecture to ask and answer questions, to ask students to solve a problem, or to discuss an issue. Pause every 15-20 minutes for this purpose. When students learn to expect these opportunities for discussion or questioning, they will listen more actively to the lecture. If you lecture for 45 minutes before you pause for questions or discussion, your students will have been taking notes for so long that they may find it difficult to switch modes quickly. Furthermore, they may well have forgotten questions, comments, or unclear concepts from the earlier parts of class (see Teaching with Lectures). If you are teaching a discussion course, integrate short lectures into the lesson plan in order to introduce concepts, clarify and order ideas, and help students make connections. Use small-group discussions, informal writing assignments, and online discussions before or at the start of class to prompt student thinking about the discussion topic. These strategies can be effective ways to provide reflective learners and shy students a means of developing ideas that they can then contribute to the class discussion. Commenting on the insights that quieter students contribute in small-group discussions and on informal writing assignments and online discussions can encourage them to speak up in the larger group; you might comment on a student’s written work, for example, “this analysis is insightful; the entire class would benefit from hearing your ideas more often” (see Teaching with Discussions). Organize each class session to include opportunities throughout to ask and answer questions; prepare initial and follow-up questions ahead of time. Use questions to assess student learning, to signal to students which material is the most important, and to help students advance their knowledge and thinking. (For a discussion of strategies for formulating questions, see Asking Questions to Improve Learning). Encourage students to ask questions throughout the class (approximately every 15 minutes), not just at the end. If grading student participation, plan to give students a preliminary participation grade, as well as a brief written evaluation of their performance. If you will grade class participation, give students preliminary grades as early as 3-4 weeks into the semester and at midterm so that they will know where they stand. Your written evaluation can be designed to encourage the quiet students to talk more often and the verbose students to hold their comments to give others a chance to participate). Return to top. Listening and RespondingUse verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage participation. Do not rely on the same volunteers to answer every question. Respond to frequent volunteers in a way that indicates that you appreciate their responses, but want to hear from others as well. Move to a part of the room where quiet students are sitting; smile at and make eye contact with these students to encourage them to speak up. By the same token, when frequent volunteers speak, look around the room rather than only at them to encourage others to respond (see below). Reduce students’ anxieties by creating an atmosphere in which they feel comfortable “thinking out-loud,” taking intellectual risks, asking questions, and admitting when they do not know something; one of the best ways to do this is to model these behaviors yourself. Give students time to think before they respond to your questions. Do not be afraid of silence. Give students 5-10 seconds to think and formulate a response. If 10-15 seconds pass without anyone volunteering an answer and the students are giving you puzzled looks, rephrase your question. Do not give in to the temptation to answer your own questions, which will condition students to hesitate before answering to see if you will supply “the answer.” Patience is key; do not be afraid of silence. The longer you wait for students to respond, the more thoughtful and complex those responses are likely to be. Often, there is at least one student in every class who will quickly raise her or his hand to answer nearly every question. If you consistently call on this student, those who require more time to formulate answers will simply learn to wait for this student to answer. (See Asking Questions to Improve Learning.) Listen fully to your students’ questions and answers; avoid interrupting. Resist the urge to interrupt when you think you know what the student is going to say or ask. Often, well-meaning and enthusiastic instructors make incorrect assumptions and leave their students’ actual questions unanswered or misrepresent what the students had planned to say. Provide specific, encouraging, varied responses. Point out what is helpful or interesting about student contributions. Pick up on comments that were made but not discussed. Do not use the same, standard praise to respond to every comment. When students hear “good point” again and again, they start to lose motivation. Ask follow-up questions to prompt students to clarify, refine, and support their ideas. When a student gives an incorrect or ill-conceived answer, respond in way that challenges the student to think more deeply or to reconsider the evidence. The best way to shut down participation, and learning, is to embarrass a student. Repeat student responses to summarize or clarify ideas. Use this strategy when a student’s comments are vague or “all over the map,” but do not over-use it, leading students to rely on you to “translate” or validate their ideas. Redirect comments and questions to other students. Encourage students to respond to one another, rather than merely to you. When a student is speaking, look around the room, not just at the student who is speaking; making eye contact with other students lets them know that you expect them to be listening and formulating responses. Provide students with a model of civil discourse by demonstrating respect for, and interest in, the views of others. Learn to limit your own comments. Particularly when facilitating a discussion, hold back from responding to every comment; otherwise, students will learn to wait for you to respond rather than formulating their own responses. Place the emphasis on student ideas. Encourage students to share their ideas and use those ideas (with attribution) whenever you can. Referring back to a comment made by a student in an earlier class demonstrates that you have thought about and appreciated what your students have to say. Active student participation does not happen naturally in university courses; it must be carefully planned and encouraged. Set aside time throughout the semester to assess student participation in your course and to develop strategies for improvement; administer midterm student evaluations to help you with this process. Consider asking a colleague to observe your class; often, outside observers can discern patterns that hinder participation but that may not be apparent to participants. Take notes during and after a semester so that you have a record of what went well and what you would like to change the next time you teach the course in order to increase student participation.

knowing your student

Diversity of the student such as age and culture provides formidable challenges for the instructors. Ignoring the unique backgroung of each student sets the tone for transferance, perceptional inaccuracies, and alienation of the student. Many students may look at you as an authority figure, parent, spouse, or friend. Each with positive and negative effects on their life, may resemble the instructor's persona. It is important for the instructor to be sensitive to the students background and fear. this allows for a solid rapport and relationship.

Motivating Students

When I return my students test I write them all a small note. Those students who receive a perfect score get an outstanding comment as an example, students who do poorly on an exam, I ask them, what assistance can I give them.

forcus

keeping your students forcus is so important in class.

Engaging students

engaging with students are so important in a class room... students feed back helps the teacher to understand there learning .

Understanding

understanding the student is so important when it comes down to teach them.....

Let your students know where ther at at all times!

I let my students know their grade at the end of each class (they can see their performance on tests, homework, quiz's, class participation, etc.) This is done on a real time basis, individually. This fact let's them know what they need to know to keep their grade or improve it.

First Day of Class for semester, Quarter or Term

Bring in a guest lecture from a non-traditional educational background that will show how that individual was able to succeed (in light of age, financial ability,and family support or lack thereof.)I have a contact of a full-professor from the University of Akron that would be willing to do this. I am sure that other instructors can do the same thing.

Ensuring an Inclusive Enviroment

By implementing ED102 into instructional methods; the instructor will be able to utilize a broad and diversified range of educational concepts that will help create an inclusive environment for the students.

Retention Strategies for disengaged learners

The very first activity should be peer introductions. I feel it's vital to retention when everyone feels included. What I do is allow each student to turn to the student to their left and to their right and to personally introduce themselves. This is a great way to build rapport and familiarity among everyone. I do this regardless of their time in a program and notice a big difference in their attitude towards each other. This is one of the first things I do even before I hand out the syllabus. It works well and I get to see who is or is not going to a possible behavioral challenge right from the beginning. I watch closely as they introduce each other and I allow time to tell why they are in their chosen program and a bit of background about themselves.

Applying courses to real world activites

Hello: During my courses I often apply concepts and principles to real world applications. I also try to challenge my students to do the same/or to use their current experiences to apply the material.I feel that if there is not a connection between the class and the working environment then this material is lost.

Summer heat and a pregnant student

Hello I have a current student in my Accounting 101 and she is feeling overwhelmed. I have a meeting with her before class next week. I hope to help her overcome some of her anxiety. Any help?

Teaching students with bad attitudes

How do you prevent a student from infecting the class with a negative attitude?

Retention and retaining information

I appreciate the idea that adult education is much more participatory. In the past, I have been concerned about covering all my material and hope to let this instruction help me "go with the flow" a little more. Thank you, this was a good block of instruction (ED102).

retention

It is important to set ground rules and make them very clear the first day so that there are no questions later. Students like to know that the instructor cares if they pass or not. Also some students need a bit of help or tutoring and treating all students as individuals instead of as a single learning group helps to focus on individual needs for learning.