If students feel accepted, they respond to the instructor better, and that helps with a positive attitude for both the instructor and the student for the full semester
Everyone wants to feel accepted and a student feels accepted they will be open to learning and particapating
Hi Winsome,
You ask a very interesting question. Don't know the exact answer but each of your proposed answers may be contributors to the overall operation of career colleges.
Gary
Hi Winsome,
I agree. Acceptance is a very powerful need. If a student feels acceptance and can get comfortable in the class then respect and rapport will quickly follow. All of these components contribute to successful completion of the course.
Gary
Could this be the reason why some middle age people are still consistently seeking acceptance? They never think that they are good enough even if they are. As professors, we are now forced to recognize the student as a whole, which includes their emotional needs. Also, with all the private schools and the desire to retain students, could helping students to feel accepted be considered a marketing strategy?
The feeling to be accepted is a need. According to Maslow, belongingness is a need that comes after fulfilling the basic and safety need. If a student feels accepted in class they will more likely rise above other challenges in their lives and stay the course of the class. Upon completion of each class, because they feel accepted, they will graduate and continue to pursue their dream.
If they feel accepted, they are more comfortable, and will likely come to class more. When they come to class ore they usually pass.
Making students feel accepted, comfortable, and challenged in classes which in turn keeps them interested with the topic being discussed.
If a student does gets the sense of not fitting in or that they can not continue on, then as an instructor I could lose them. When a student/adult feels accepted, they are more likely to stay in the class and participate.
Hi Lora,
I don't think professors worried about such things either when I was in school. They always started their first lecture with the "look to your left now look to your right" speech to spook us. Because when we looked left and right and was told that those people would not pass the course it really set the stage for feeling comfortable. We were scared to death. Fortunately I was one of those that survived those speeches but I was plenty scared that on any given day my number would be up and I would flunk the course. These were classes of 300-600 students so the fear factor was even higher.
I agree with you that with the smaller classes students really look for acceptance by the instructor and fellow students. I work very hard in my classes to make sure each students feels accepted and can find success if he/she is willing to put for the effort required.
Gary
If a student feels that they are not excepted in class or by instructors they are isolated and will be on the path to failure. It is so very important for all students to feel excepted and important.
I also attended "mass lectures" in the "old days" - I do not recall any feelings of worry over being accepted or not in those big lecture halls. On the other hand, in the smaller to medium sized classes, I do recall wondering whether I stuck out like a sore thumb and having a certain "tenseness", being uncomfortable like maybe I didn't belong there like everyone else did. I don't think the profs worried about such things much!
How absolutely devastating that must have been to that student!
I think "acceptance" contributes to success, that is, learning, by removing the fears, pressures, and stresses to belong, to be accepted. One is not concerned with what someone else will think and the focus is on the subject at hand, not fears external to that subject. It seems to me that when those issues are removed one has created an environment for a focus of true learning. To me that means, as several posters have discussed, an environment in which making mistakes is "okay" - not something to be dreaded. In fact, making mistakes is quite agreeable as the mistake can be parsed and used to demonstrate why the correct answer IS the right answer, and the wrong answer is the wrong answer. Additionally, students must, I think, understand that all of us make mistakes, that it is not the end of the earth, and that there is rarely a mistake that can't be "fixed." On top of that the classroom should be the perfect place to make a mistake in any event - the classroom it seems to me is the journey going to certain somewhere.
When students feel accepted in the class, they are more apt to provide input into the daily lectures or to ask questions. Acceptance leads to confidence, which enhances learning.
Hi Laura,
I have seen the same thing and it is sad that we lose a student due to other students lack of acceptance. We need to let them know that they are accepted in the class and that we will be there to support them should they need it. This can help them to rise above the challenges of dealing some of their fellow students.
Gary
It is important to have a social group. This group be it in class, work or at home is your cheering section. For students acceptance means a back up system. Running late, unable to attend class due to illness or other factors, with a network in class, students can get missed assignments or a study buddy. I have often seen students succeed and fail based on their acceptance in my class. It becomes difficult to get a student to come backto class when they feel that the other students do not like them.
Hi Laura,
Yikes. That's harsh. I'm a math instructor and it is absolutely essential that students feel comfortable getting wrong answers. One way I do this is by giving some assignments that are just practice that are never turned in. Sometimes I even just scan over their assignments and if they have honestly attempted all problems and shown work I give them a completion grade. The students really like this because it takes the pressure off of getting everything right.
There are times though when I know students feel embarrassed. I have students work problems at the board a lot and some find it awkward when they make a mistake. I just keep stressing to the entire class that it is necessary to make mistakes to learn from them. Sometimes I just say to them. "You were just testing us to see if we were paying attention, right?" That usually helps lighten the mood.
Students need to feel they belong and they have made a good choice to come to shcool. If a student can connect with their instructor or other studnets they will want to comet to class. Also students will contact one another to see where they are if they are absent. They will notice someone cares if they are not in class.
Younger students, those straight from high school or in their early twenties, still experience peer pressure. Their priority is how do they fit and are they accepted. That is how they rationalize success. If they feel accepted they can then concentrate on why they are there. While the older student (over 30)may not succumb to peer pressure in that way, they too feel the need to be accepted by the class and not treated as the "older" person in the class but as a contemporary - a student. With a positive attitude they can plunge forward and not worry too much about not having been in school for x number of years and holding the class back. If the group as a whole is accepting of each other then as a class they function better. The role of the instructor in this scenario is to be the "facilitator of acceptance.
