Ryan Legan

The best motivation I use in class is talking about the students future job opportunities in the field. This can be from talking about current job openings, different types of jobs, what's expected, tools used on certain jobs. When I get them all focused in one direction. The material is no longer a conveyed with lecture, but turned into a discussion.

Most of my material I know thoroughly and on occasions have accidentally quoted the book verbatim. It's only happenstance and when you catch yourself doing it takes the wind from your sails. Before I give the same lecture I try to tweak something about the subject to keep the material seem new and exciting. In my opinion the energy of the class comes from the educator.

Setting the tone when students first approach the classroom is very important to a successful class. If they feel respected, understand the course requirements, and understand the pace of the class everything typically goes smoothly. On the other hand if you have a bad day on the first day of class, then the outcome is fairly poor. For an example if a policy has recently changed from the student's last class it causes an opportunity for animosity. Some students revert back to a high school complaining mentality and it's nearly impossible redirect those students.

Tactile learning for my students is the best way to intake mass amounts of information and skill sets. Unfortunately we don't have time to introduce all materials that way, so I try to meet them in the middle with multimedia examples.

Being an expertise of subject instructor who works with students being predominantly young males I get the alpha personas that question authority. That's fine unless it's to take control of my class. At the beginning of a course establishing who you are and what you expect sets the foreground of what's appropriate classroom discussions.

I've learned that arriving early to class and greeting my students with the occasional small talk reduces stress in the environment. Also there are fewer random distractions during class than when I arrive just before class.

We all have a plan on how today's lesson is going to be, but when class turns into nap time it's time to shift gears. I try one style and if that method doesn't work either the students are overburden with information or they're apathetic and can't see the importance of this knowledge. I give them an example of how knowing certain information will let them segue into better careers.

The best method for everyone to learn effectively is to repeat the key points over and over again. Then the book is just used for overview.

By telling short positive stories of my career gets most of my students motivated about the course and their future career goals. I know this is effective because I still get that feeling that "I can conquer the world" when I look back when I was a student and my teacher would motivate me with their success into thinking I can be successful too.