I like to evaluate my student through their brief introductions. When I introduces myself I like the students to know I care about their success in my class. That it will be a good learning environment.
Robert,
What are some strategies you use to do this?
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
learn student names an faces
I learn what the students want out of the class. I learn what my students are goint to do with the information I give them during this class.I learn about what experiences my students have up to this point in thier educations.
This information helps me to learn how I am going to teach my class.
Jon,
I always look forward to starting a new class of students because I get to work with and instruct such interesting individuals. Through the introductions I get to learn more about my students and what their life experiences are and how we can relate them to the course content. Great way to get the course off to a good start.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Introductions help break the ice and let the students know that they are learning from someone who has the necessary credentials and expertise to teach the students how to be successful in their chosen field.
SANDRA
How do you secure this information as you prepare to interact with your students?
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Learning about each other before the class starts to get some back ground on the student and let them know a little about myself.
Michael,
I like to find this information out as well for the reasons you state. The result is that I can more accurately customize my instructional delivery to the current class and thus increase their engagement.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Through introductions, I like to get more than just who you are but where you are from. (country, state, city, village etc) Backgrounds can vary vastly in my industry so having an idea of where a person came from can be invaluable. I use this information to adjust my teaching style and methods and have had tremendous success.
John,
This is approach is appropriate because you are bringing years of experience and confidence in your knowledge and skills to your students. This way your students will know that even though you are a new instructor they are being instructed by a professional in their field who has lived what they are preparing to do.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I dont see any problem with being honest to my first class that I am a new instructor. I mean, I can see a challenge, but ultimately I think being upfront is best, and may even calm the nerves of students.
I was thinking of introducing it this way.
I have worked for:
4 dealerships
5 owners
8 service managers
and taught 0 classes...
Any thoughts, good, bad...?
John,
I like introductions for the reasons you list. They are a valuable way to gain insight into your current student group. They are also a lot of fun because I am always amazed at the life experiences that my students bring to the class.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I'm realizing the importance of not short cutting the intros. If anything, I would make it a little bit longer activity. While earning some respect from the students by sharing my experiences, it can also make the new students and older students much more comfortable in their new intimidating environment
This is very important. It gives the students and the instructor a chance to learn about each other. Allowing them to share also shows them from the start that they will have to communicate in this class.
Secondly, it allows the instructor to detect students who might come from other cultures.
Introductions allow you to not only to see established baseline data, but also allow to make projections for your entire semester!
Leslie,
This sounds like a fun ice breaker that gets the students talking with each other as well as expanding their abilities in communication and class sharing. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Leslie,
Thank you for sharing your story with us. It is humorous because so often students encounter "space heaters" for teachers. You were able to respond that you are the real deal and that you know not only math as a concept but also as an application in addition to your professional training as an educator. I know the respect your students had for you soared when you completed your story.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
In the past, I've had my students exchange information with another student, include each others' one "claim to fame," which I picked up from a college class while working on my MS degree. Then I have each student present what he/she learned about the student however they want to do it. Some are hams, and do a charades-type thing to make you guess, and others are very shy and quiet and will just read from the card. I think it allows us all to find out something interesting about each other, even if it's not related to class specifically, and it allows me to find out a lot about my students' personalities and how they feel up in front of others. Then I've got a great framework from which to "tweek" my activities so they meet students' needs a little better.
I used to be a business teacher; then I changed to teaching general adult basic education (GED) classes. I still do that 1/2 day, and I teach basic college math to professional welders who are studying to become welding inspectors, which certainly isn't my area of expertise, but I am very good at math. I've never had problems getting to know my students or establish rapport and explain my level of expertise in my classes with the exception of teaching math to welding students, and I've gotten quite good at explaining that I do have great experience in math as my dad had a roofing company and lots of math is needed in roofing and that he taught that kind of math to me at a young age and that I have done a lot of work in accounting also, which requires lots of basic math. I've written too much, but it's to lead up to a humorous question I got in this math class the first day of class one phase! One of the students raised his hand, and I called on him by name, and he just flat-out asked, "So are you a REAL teacher, or did someone just decide you could do the math in this book and throw you in here?" I burst out laughing along with the entire class! He just looked at me quite seriously, so I proceeded to tell him how many years of experience I had being a "real" teacher and how I had a B.S. in business education and an M.S. in college teaching. He just said, "Oh good. I think we need a real teacher, not just a welder they pulled in here, to teach us this math." So in reality, he made me feel that my specific area of expertise was indeed quite helpful to these students even if I don't have any welding/pipefitting experience. Since I also tutor math for the welding and pipefitting students during my GED class, I've been learning more and more welding/pipefitting specific math, which I'm definitely using in my math class.
