Better voice control during lecture. When I get excited about the material I am teaching my voice tends to become louder.
Hi Marcelo! Welcome again to the course and to the discussion forums. Your point about patience and open-mindedness going hand-in hand, is right on target. I too have found that when I make a concerted effort to exercise patience with adult learners, and remain open-minded to their diversities, abilities and challenges, I, in turn, learn so much about them and so much from them as we engage in a learning partnership.
Eye contact, as you referenced, works both ways. It is so important to maintain eye contact, but, of course, the intenseness of "the stare" can create a different message. I had the same challenge; something that worked for me was that I made sure that I had eye contact with students while talking informally with them as well as when I was presenting or conducting classroom activities. That way, they began to see my eye contact as sort of a "persona" of who I am and not as an intimidation.
Thanks so much for your observations,
Jay
ED106 Facilitator
I believe that one of the most important skills that we Instructors need to have is pacience and being open minded. Pacience will allow us to listen carefully to our students needs and discover any abnormality in the classroom. By being open minded, we will not pre judge or make wrong assumptions about our students. I believe these 2 skills go hand to hand. We must be able to know and understand the student enviroment to be able to determine the best way to reach him and create a bridge between both of us.
In reference to my improvement skills,I believe that I need to work on my eye contact! Not because I feel nervous, because some times some students tells me that it is very intimidating!
lecturing still has challanges for me at times, i find i have to time the lectures correctly or student may loose interest, i have learned to keep moving around the room to keep them engauged
I understand that we need to do all these things, but how do you get them all down? Do you work on voice first, then physical, then stories etc?!
I suppose to begin understanding the diverse amount of students we instruct.Trying to read into the eye contact. Are they asking for help, are they saying, (Sure I understand) I feel at times I'm doing good with this until I grade the test papers
i belive eye contact is very important it allows all the students to feel as i am talking to each and everyone as an indiviule instead of a class.and i would have to say body language is something i need to improve on
My problem is monotone voice, improving on that & body language are your best help in comunication
Hi Glenn! Thanks for your oustanding observations! It's interesting that building student rapport is both a process and a result. Developing rapport with students definitely requires effective communication as well as a sensitivity to diversity, both in culture and in learning styles, yet rapport is also a result from indeed being effective at those communication skills. As mentioned, the methods are often implied. Regarding Cullen's list of pointers about teaching and communicating:
-Questioning/eliciting: this is crucial to learning because it fosters critical thinking, as long as the questions not only require identification and description of content, but also analysis application and judgment - referential questions, relating to deeper thought, meaning and process are more effective here than display questions
-Responding to students’ contributions: This is a key element because it not only reinforces learning, but it facilitates student buy-in
-Presenting/explaining: Given, this is a major part of the instructor's responsibility; an instructor's methods of presentation and explanation should vary to incorporate the different learning styles
-Organizing/giving instructions: Clarifying for students the learning objectives/outcomes, resources/tools, expectations and methods of evaluation set the stage for a successful learning experience; students cannot operate in the dark so to speak
-Evaluating/correcting: This, since the late 90's, has become a focus of its own - using assessments that actually reflect student learning - not necessarily the traditional exam, but other forms of evaluations and rubrics that authentically evaluate a learner's comprehension, demonstration, practice and application of the subject at hand
-Sociating’/establishing & maintaining classroom rapport: Back to your original point; though it may be implied, faculty rapport with students is still at the base of learning dynamics and the student/instructor partnership
Thanks again for your comments!
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
I believe that the following is important to diverse learning.Communication skills and the ability to build rapport are implied rather than stated directly. Richard Cullen (1998) is a little more explicit, providing useful ideas on features of teacher talk, which can help foster communication with students. His initial list includes: use of referential questions (rather than display questions), content feedback (rather than form-focused feedback), use of speech modification such as rephrasing and attempts to negotiate meaning. However, he quite rightly points out that such a list is defined in terms of the norms of communication from outside the classroom. So what do desirable classroom norms look like? He suggests the following list:
- Questioning/eliciting
- Responding to students’ contributions
- Presenting/explaining
- Organizing/giving instructions
- Evaluating/correcting
- ‘Sociating’/establishing & maintaining classroom rapport
An effective language teacher will aim to use all of the above channels of communication, whether it is through varying questioning techniques, taking care to give clear instructions, being sensitive to feedback from students, and so on.
On a personal note; I believe that I need improvement on voice and speech modulation patterns.
Tone of voice, facial expressions and, hand gestures.
By using your tone of voice (voice fluxuating) it gets the students attn.
Facial expressions; When the students see your expressions it makes them listen more.
Hand gestures; You can give the student praise w/out saying a word, just give them a thumbs-up.
My listening skills I would like to improve more.
When a student is tring to explain something to me, I sometimes form their question in my mind instead of listening to their entire question.
Don, I typically use whiteboards for summary bullet points, outlines, topics/agenda for the day, list of ongoing assignments, and for recording questions or comments from students that are important, but not directly related to the subject at hand (as opposed to not addressing). I do not typically use whiteboards for writing content, long examples, etc.
Just a thought,
Thanks,
Jay
ED106 Facilitator
From a teaching perspective, I believe that student-teach communication skills are the most important to have because if you lose your students, you have lost site of what is significant to a classroom.
I think that both verbal and visual work very well with the way people learn in todays modern learning environment. Both verbal and books are a great source.
One skill that seems to be overlooked by administrations is the ability to draw and even write on a white-board. Long sentences seem to drop off the end of the board. Drawing technical pictures is a bit of an art. I would like to see more training in this area. I am sure some white board experts have some tricks that they could share.
This is a good point, Jason, as open and effective communication lays the foundation for the professional student/instructor relationship. This is crucial to the learning environment.
Thanks,
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
Hi Rene! Thanks for your observations!
To your comments, an instructor's non-verbal communication plays a huge role in engaging students and showing genuine interest. From the start, verbal and nonverbal communication between the instructor and student lays the foundation for a learning partnership.
Jay Hollowell
ED106 Facilitator
Non-verbal communication is important (eye contact, open body language) because it shows all students (regardless of age, skill level) that you want to help them succeed. Verbal communication skills like proper tone, inflection, pitch, etc. are important for keeping all students interested, again, regardless of skill level.
As an instructor, I probably need to work on both verbal and non-verbal communication. I tend to get in a "zone" with the computer topics we discuss, and forget to walk around, smile and talk loudly enough.
Thanks, Kristin! Glad it could be of some help! I appreciate your participation in the forums; please feel free to ask questions or post comments at any time.
Jay
ED106
Thanks, Mr. Hollowell, for your advice on how to deal with the student who asks a question I just answered. I think the idea of having someone else in class give the answer may be just the solution. I hadn't thought of the fact that hearing the same answer in a different form or from a different source might help to turn on the lightbulb of enlightenment. Just goes to show that book-smarts aren't all that's required to be a good instructor! :)
Kristin
