How do you engage students who want to put out little effort?
I feel as if some students don't put in the time necessary to absorb the material and blame me when they don't remember terms, etc. I use participative exercises to try and get across the concepts, but I do feel as if I am always trying to present a ton of material in a short twelve weeks.
What do you do with students who want to run through things once and don't understand why they aren't getting all of it?
Tasia,
I teach a course like yours. They have to pass my course in order to get their state certification. I have the same challenge to "win" them over to realizing that my course does have value to and for them. It is fun to see them get it and start to actually enjoy being in a general requirement course.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I teach Introduction to Sociology at a medical certification school so often my first challenge is convincing the students that the material in my course will be relevant to them in their career fields and their life outside of the classroom.
I find the most effective way to do this is to always relate our topics to current events by both bringing in examples that I find, and having them use current events in their homework. I also leave it up to them to choose current event topics that interest them most that way they can engage with sociology as it relates to a topic that already interests them. This exercise helps engage students that may not find sociology interesting as a topic on its own.
I remind them both in the Live chats & in the classroom announcements to read the material and have practical applications in the live chats. I take verbal/typed quizzes and polls over the information as we progress through the chat material to keep the students engaged.
Encorage and make them fill that this is what they decide to do for life and make they dreams come through
I think this is one of the best ways you can approach a student who seems to think they have to put in little to no effort. I teach in the Veterinary Technology program. These students put the life of animals in their hands on a daily basis in their profession. I feel by approaching these students and asking them why they going into this career field I can get an answer from them that I can turn around and use as a motivational tool to help them succeed.
Culinary Baking and Pastry, it's their 4th class out of 5.
I find that these students benefit from coming in on tutoring times and repetition proves to be successful.
Hi Kelly,
I understand your frustration with some of your students. What is the course you teach? Where does it fall in the sequence of their preparation?
Thanks.
Gary
Hi Bruno,
Good questions to ask students. With the Food Network students get a different perspective on the realities of a career in the culinary arts. Your questioning of them and they verbalizing what their goals are helps them to create a vision of what they see their future being.
Gary
Well, my first question to the student will be, Why are you here? Do you really are taking this experience seriously? I will explain to the student the beauty of the profession and that will be up to him how succesfull he will be, not just as a Chef but in any carrier.
I have the same problem. By the time students get to my class, they find it an unecessary burden. I do my best to present the knowledge, scenarios and necessity for the information in real life. I also try to impress the value of having the information while making the class as enjoyable as possible. After all that effort, it can be a bit frustrating when they continue to feel the same way.
Hi Jackie,
Sounds like you are doing all of the right things to encourage and engage your students. What I do is if I have done all of the engaging strategies I focus on the students that are putting forth effort and help them be successful.
The students that don't take learning seriously I continue to work with but I let them take their own course since they have chosen not to be successful in my course. You can only do what you can do to get them involved in the learning process.
Gary
I struggle with this all of time. It seems like they want to learn everything by osmosis. I try to give them life examples where they really need to know what they are doing. Even using scenarios that could be scary. Some still don't want to take it seriously.
Hi Celia,
Even though there is a lot of material and just 12 short weeks I still slow things down. I boil the core content down and we spend some time and do activities that help the students to retain what they "must" know. I give them different opportunities to learn the material and don't assume guilt from them if they don't put forth the effort to learn the material. We are dealing with many students today who feel they are "entitled" to good grades and little effort. This cannot be the case if we are to turn out skilled and successful graduates.
Gary
I have tried to put responsibility on them. In my class, there are loads of terms we cover in class and the book covers as well. For each section I hand out a list of the terms they are expected to not only know, but be able to use as well. In class, I'll pull up an example and give a "pop quiz." This is where I ask students to figure out the example without em and point out the elements we have discussed. On the tests I have questions that ask for definitions and then questions where the term has been applied as well.
