motivating students
How do you motivate students who are only interested in taking up space and wasting the instructor's time?
Regena,
I find that starting with some sort of drama is a good idea. That tends to spark the interest and motivate surgical students. Although it may sound a little morbid, if a student is in my class first of all you have to score pretty high to get in so the student is capable, and something caught the student's interest in the first place. Once we engage the student it usually gets better from there.
These are good ideas-very helpful as I am a new instructor.
As Joyce, I too feel that motivation can only be accomplished in the indifferent student by catching their interest. To do this I may begin the lecture with a small drama of some sort. I try to make each student feel crucial to the success of the class. I may assign different ones to assist me with demonstration. I try to select that one that tends to be slack or hold back.
Hi Joyce,
There are many different things you can do. You can create learning teams and have competitions using the course content. You can use case studies to motivate the students to be creative in problem solving. Service learning gets students involved in using their knowledge to help people in the community. Look for ways to get students excited about applying their newly acquired knowledge and they won't be so apt to just take up space.
Gary
