You are looked to as the expert, so your body language and teaching techniques motivate your students.

This is a very good acronym for me to utilize. Sometimes dealing with adults with a mixture of teenagers can get me out of my element.

Adults tend to value their decision on coming back to school when they have pay for it on their own.

Adults process information different from younger generations. They are sometimes more focused.

I have found that when the student is motivated ,it is more like he or she is on a mission,they know what they want to accomplish and they are much more enthusiastic about seeing the end result. this makes the teaching of the subject much more rewarding also because the motivation is very apparent and present!

The portion of this section about students and age issues really hit home. In the past I have had students question my ability to teach them because of my age. I became a college professor at the age of 28. Now, at the age of 32, I am younger than a lot of my students. In addition, I'm still younger that the parents of my younger students. I kind of sit between a rock and a hard place. While I am completely competent in my ability to teach them, I shy away from posting my picture to our course portal so students won't have an idea of my age range. Since I teach online not posting my picture completely prevents students from knowing my age. Has anyone else had this issue? If so, how did you handle it?

Instructors need to be able to get their students pumped and excited about what they are getting ready to learn. This makes for a much better learning environment in that the students are paying attention, listening, taking good notes, and just all around happy and excited to be there.

I think it is very important to figure out learning styles and personalities early. This will ensure time to adjust as necessary.

Some students have internal brakes applied to their ablities and need direction in ensuring, Yes I CAN. This may require obtainng self actualization of whom they think they are and what they are presenting to others. Facing that they may require to change their social behavior in order to achieve their true desire in changing their plot in life. Learning at this time really becomes self motivate.

I enjoyed this exercise as it allowed a view into building up the students confidence to increase his participation.

Some students need to know that the instructors are listening to their concern and responding to their questions in a manner in which is understandable to them.

Instructors with experience in the field they teach, make better instructors than those who do not have any work experience prior to teaching. Instructors with outside work experience allow students to learn more skills, and reinforce their abilities to achieve their goals. The instructor is able to become a role figure that has succeeded in finding a job using what he or she learned from similar classes. Students are practical, and goal oriented. When an instructor shares his or her work experiences with his or her class, this is a good motivation strategy.

One great way to make students enjoy your class and gain their trust and build a rapport is to actually make students believe that you really care for their profession. Interest in their profession makes students eager to behave in class, eager to demonstrate worthiness. An instructor must make his or her students believe they will gain skills from class, enough to go out to the real world and make a difference!

It seems like in every course I teach I end up spending some time on active listening. In the age of multi-tasking my students believe they can do many things at the same time, but I have to convince them that they are probably not doing any of the things very well. At least, not as well as they would if they do one at a time. A great exercise is I'll have two students read from different articles of a magazine at the same time for about 45 secs. I'll then ask the audience what the articles were about, usually not one person can give any detail beyond a word or two that they heard in each article. Then I'll have them pick one reader to listen to and sit up, make eye contact and really focus on the words the reader is saying. Then I will have the readers read again. This time when I ask what the articles are about the audience is usually able to give better summaries. They really get to experience the difference between hearing and actively listening. It really helps to build better classroom habits.

When an instructor is enthusiastic, it shows. Students become interested in learning why an instructor likes what he or she teaches. Providing real life examples to what an instructor teaches, is part of that enthusiasm.

There are many nontraditional students who attend class the first day with frustrations, fears, and little skill, but go on to learn, by time that they can achieve their goals, add to their life experiences and even build strong friendships with their peers. This stems form a supportive instructor, a healthy class environment, adhering to clear rules, being fair, acceptance by classmates, encouragement, and motivation.

The instructor must provide motivation in order to get the students motivated. It is imperative for a student to be intrinsically motivated; which may stem from extrinsic factors.

An instructor's flexibility, an understanding that babies do come early, families experience the death of a friend or loved one, blizzards prevent travel to class, illness of student or child takes priority encourage motivation

Performing a mid-course evaluation will give you the pulse of the class. By knowing how the students are progressing in the course you will know that you are right on course with their training or if you need to make any changes.

Learning the student names shows the respect you have for them and for the identity they carry through their names. This helps you to develop rapport with your students and get the course off to a good start.