Remembering students names is very important. It gives the student a feeling of belonging and caring. Everyone likes to be remembered and this is a good way to start the process.

In order to teach math to students you first need to convince them that they can be successful. I have witnessed students so fearful of failure they don't even try. If you can convince them they can be successful at the small parts, they are willing to attempt the harder material. Until they think they can, they can't.

In my classes, the students play family feud with the test information for the week as a way to drill and also to motivate them to learn and study. We divide into two teams and go to the board. I call out the terms or information and they race to write the answer on the board. The losing team has to dance for the other team. It is fun and it really motivates the students to study and learn the material.

Students sometimes come to class tired from working, on their mind, and can't focus on the lecture for the night. When I notice that students are pretty much saturated, I change the atmosphere by playing a game, or doing some role playing to stimulate the learning environment. Students who feel bogged down often feel that they can't complete their goals.

I have had a problem in the past with students showing up for class maybe two days out of five. I have explained that in class assignments are being missed when students do not show up, and valuable information being missed as well. Students sometimes will be absent on test days so that they can ask the other students what was on the test. To combat that situation, I change the test for those that missed the original.

At the midterm, I give a progress report to each student in the class. For those students who are performing below average, I set up individual meeting times to try and dissect why they are not performing well in class. In some cases, this has developed rapport with struggling students, but has "back fired" in other cases.

What is some advice for helping students maintain focus when outside events prevent them from participating in the course as a whole?

How do you balance the personal human side with the authoritative educational leader of the class? It is important not to be seen as a "buddy" but being personable could lead to that scenario.

From what I've noticed is that older students tend to be more active in their learning by asking more questions that may or may not be on topic. How do you control this without getting off topic or making it seem like you don't care about their input?

Finding way to help students express creativity is a great motivator. However, it’s not always easy getting them to express it. If you can have students expressing themselves this way I think motivation will elevate. One example I have seen that I loved. In pharmacology the medications can have long names, and multiple effects. A fellow instructor gave a assignments to groups to create fictional (fairy tale) type of story where the main character was the medication and the events in the story are based on what effects a medication may have. Finally, the story must include a portion where main character fights of negative/side effects of the drug. I found this brilliant.

I know this may seem counterintuitive. Allow me an explanation. I have found in many courses that group work of 4 - 5 students seems to increase participation as many already know. I also find that it allows students the opportunity to formulate their interpretation of the subject matter. Also, a known impact. How many of us on the teacher side have stopped to look at the impact it has with relation to the students. I have a theory. I think students are more accepting of ideas and feedback from the instructor because they are surrounded by peers sharing like experiences and this raises their individual comfort levels.

There are severalmethods I use based on the class size. One is to make name place cards for a larger class & then create a seating chart.I can acess the students photos prior to class & be sure I know "who is who" & I always try to have a simple in class assignment the first day that I can return to students so that I physically associate the name w/the handwriting & voice.

I'm wondering whether bonus points and extra credit are the same thing. Our school recently banned extra credit. I have occasionally added a higher level thinking question to my exams, for which I gave bonus points for correct responses. I considered these to be good indicators of transference of learning, but now I wonder whether I can still use them.

At the end of every class during wrap up I like to talk about what exciting things we will be doing/learning the next day. Then I encourage the students to "do a great job" at work that night as it all relates back to our overall learning. It makes a connection to the students that everything they are doing can be used to contribute to their learning.

I try hard to learn every student's name by the end of day three. I must read over there names 50 times before the end of day one. It's great to send the students off for their first weekend during your class and inspire them by showing you care enough to get to know them before the end of the week.

I usually quiz my students about every 20-30 minutes or after we have covered a difficult topic. Oftentimes students feel embarrassed when they are called on so I always assure them that if they don't know the answer they can say "pass" or I can ask someone else. I will ask them questions again in the same nonthreatening way to show them that I have confidence that they have the knowledge. This seems to work and students don't seem to be nervous or embarassed because of the way I present it.

I liked this section & the different ideas that were presented to keep students focused & give practical hands on experience. Additionally, discussion on keeping students involved and keeping all students involved was good to revisit. The 60 second term paper was used as a good example, but I've never heard of this. Could you please elaborate on what this is and how it is implemented.

Most of my students are very apprehensive about their ability in the course I teach, remedial math. Typically they have struggled with math for the majority of their lives. I've found that the best way to motivate them is to sincerely compliment them on their work when it's done correctly. For me, smiling and making eye contact while telling them how well they are doing goes a long way. If they make a mistake I gently try to show or explain where they went wrong and don't make a big fuss over the error.

There is a fine line when to let the students vent a little and when to stop them and return to the class at hand. I rely on the meeting moderator training I was given when I was working for IBM. There are many times when a meeting would stray a little from the topic at hand, we were taught to let it play out if it was constructive, but as soon as it became nonconstructive we would call to table it and either schedule a followup meeting or assign it to one of the participants as a work item. I have brought that to same training to use in the classroom by letting the students vent while they were being constructive (OK, not destructive) with in certain guidelines - I don't let them bad mouth a fellow student or an instructor. Terry

I hadn't thought of using these type of techniques. I can see their value and expecially like the crisis technique. I think this wuld be very effective in geting students invloved again as active learners. Kristi Meyer