The teaching enviroment
What effect doe's Instructor style have on the students overall performance in a course? Are scores improved in a structured but friendly enviroment?
HI Marina,
A great goal to have and one that your students will appreciate greatly. They have enough stress in their lives as students anyway instructors don't need to add to it if they don't have to.
Gary
If students are stressed out they do not learn very well.My goal is to create stress-free environment with positive learning experience.
It has been my experience over the last few years of teaching that the more enthusiastic the instructor is about the course and it's content, the easier it is to get the students at least somewhat excited about the subject matter.
I also try to keep the atmosphere in my class a bit laid back, I shoot for a stress-free environment. Most students have many outside stressors, so it makes it easier for them to learn the course content in class if they can clear thier minds and be free of stress for a portion of thier day. They look forward to comming to class if they know it is not another stressor or pressure they have to endur.
I choose to use the "Match and Pace" method. Something I learned in an NLP seminar
A Positive learning environment helps the student to learn
I have noticed in the time that I've been teaching that an enthusiastic instructor is more likely to set a better learning environment than a bitter instructor. The attitude that instructors have towards their students is very much reflected in their teaching styles and the environment is deteriorated. Career Colleges are special because of the many difficulties that our students face on a daily basis. And if we as instructors have no faith in them than who will, when sometimes they lack faith in themselves.
Douglas,
I have no hard facts only experience to draw from. The instructors that I have had that created an exciting and passionate classroom often got most of my attention. I generally did better in the course GPA wise but what really gets me is when I would be discussing something years later in industry, that I had not thought about for years, and would quote that instructor. If my could drop those my lines and info taught by me after so long that would be a serious ego boost and emotional paycheck.
Chris
