fisrt be a good listener and solve conflicts

It is true...you get what you give...So, when you bring a positive attitude to the classroom, you will, mostlikely, receive the same from your students.

A great class is a motivated Instructor and an Interested class.

Soft skills are essentially important for all types of students but most important to the troubled students. Identifying them and meeting their needs is only done through these skills. Instructors that lack these skills should not be teachers. They cannot be effective teachers unless they get to know their students and identify their needs educationally. Some students will not be sucessful unless approached in the right manner. For many of these students, you only get one shot at this. If approached in the wrong way, in a threatening manner for example, they may completely shut down and it may become impossible to resolve.

I would love to hear suggestions from others regarding motivating students that are ready to give up on their education and/or those that are not applying themselves to their abilities.

Being polite,tactful, honest, providing a constructive feedback and having good positive relationships with students is key success for a good instructor.

I teach Psychology and have noticed that many of my students lack emotional intelligence skills. This topic is even briefly lectured on, but the mindset of the students doesn't seem to change from the beginning to the end of the course. I know that the students would be more successful throughout their program of study and in the work place if they would actually recognize their deficit and practice using emotional intelligence. Any ideas?

I enjoyed this lesson. I can see that soft skills along with people skills are important to function of a healthy work environment or a teacher student relationship. It's like comparing it to an overly strict parent. Being strict is ok but overly strict is not. The child will rebell initially.

I am teaching a Human Growth & Development class right now and some days I am seriouslly thinking of showing up to my class dress as a clown just to get them going. If anyone have some suggestions on how to motivate this specific group I would appreciate it.

People skills are so very important in every area of life, especially being a nurse educator. we deal with people every minute of the day, and if you are not aware of every word, every body language you are exhibiting you can totally distroy your patients their family members, and your students.This module is a refresher course for me. Thanks

Motivating student is difficult until you can generate their passion in a subject. Got to find what the passion is.

I completely agree with all that is promoted in this section; however, with me being a communication instructor I feel most students identify soft skills as purely an innate behavior. "I already know how to communicate with others" is a very common complaint from my students. Is there a method/way that could by-pass all the complaints about learning these emotional intelligence/soft skills/people skills?

Managing emotions is a fine art that very few people have mastered. I am asking for advice on the following: Let's say you sit in an area at the office where you are surrounded by many employees because of lack of space. So therefore you are constantly hearing other people's conversations, and a lot of them are not appropriate. Specifically, you hear others talk trash about other employees, the school as an organization and even students. Let's say you have given suggestions on handle to handle these feelings on many occasions, but they never seem to take your advice--they just continue to complain. They are all talk and no action. So what do you do? This has happened to me a lot and I have had to keep myself a time or two from losing my temper.

Having worked in an environment that was strained at best because of the behavior of the workers. Degrating,name calling, arguments and disrespect were an everyday occurance. I referred to the job as the toxic dump. EAP had to come in and be a mediator to help improve the work place. Employees were not happy therefore the customers were not happy. I have learned that a work place needs to be free from verbal harrassment. Once the work place is out of control how does one retake the environment and change it into a pleasant place with mutual respect between employees?

Soft skills are so important for teaching as well as working effectively with others.

It would be ideal to teach a class in soft skills, does any one see this lacking in Gen Y

What are some of the techniques you have used to manage students who have many personal problems which affect their learning performance and concentration? I have practiced the good listening skills when faced with this challenge and try to provide some positive feedbacks to help them finding the solutions to their issues and maximize their learning opportunities.

Learned to send student to proper advisor for outside problems

As an online Comp I facilitator for a mid-sized college, many students start the course lacking in several areas of soft skills. The development of self-esteem, time management, self-awareness, and personal responsibility are vital to the success of the online course and, truthfully, with any college class. Generally, the students hold a job and already have these skills to some degree, but may not understand how or why these skills should be used in an online enviroment. The frustration (and sometimes fear!) of the writing and research composition entails are significant factors that I strive to continually defeat. Building this bridge for the students calls upon my own skills of patience, commitment, flexibility, and adaptability are often called on to nearly extreme extents. The danger here lies between being understanding vs. students taking advantage of the perceived 'weakness' or 'slackness' that they may feel I project. The true test is to be fair and use soft skills, but project the same self-awareness and personal integrity that I attempt to foster with my students. Sometimes, since I do not see the students personally, it is difficult and mistakes/misunderstandings take place. Any insight on how to improve the bond between student and facilitator could be enlightening.

Hello: I teach at a very small community college and we get to know our students very well. This is to the point we know what motivates them and what frustrates them as well. I have found that I'm able to help control the frustration by listening and offering some guidance while at the same time encouraging them to excel.