Susan,
Feeling a part of the class and being valued by the instructor is important for students. When they feel this way they will be willing to put forth more effort in being successful and making progress toward their career goals.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Students need to feel as though they are in a good learning environment. By being a caring instructor, the the student feels more motivated to succeed and more eager to participate.
It is very important to develop a good rapport with your students. By doing this it will increase your retention. I also incorporate my personal experiences. This works well with my nontraditional students. They see me in a different way other than their instructor. I'm more human like.
Cheryl,
Well said and is reflective of how we as professional educators need to conduct ourselves as we interact with our students. This is the foundation for developing rapport and enhancing learning.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Students must know that their teachers will treat them with respect and objectivity. They need to know that they will be treated fairly. and without personal bias. That rapport is the trust every student wants. Interacting in class is scary. If the instructor models rapport, then the other students will be influenced by that and respect will grow.
Lisa,
Earning the respect of your students is so important because with respect comes the opportunity to develop rapport. What a great feeling it is to have rapport with your students and know that you are helping them to move toward their career goals.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Developing rapport is very important in teaching. The most important reason to develop rapport is it opens communication between you and your students. If I have developed rapport then my students will be more open to advice or correction that I may have to give them. If we do not have that rapport they are more apt to become defensive bacause they do not understand that I genuinley care about them. On the otherside an open rapport opens communication for the student as well. The student will be more apt to share with me issues,concerns or fears that may affect their success in my class.
Rappor is very important,helps students to be free to ask questions and feel more confortable knowing about the instructor.
The student wants to know that you are invested in their success. They are more likely to be engaged with the instructor if they have a good rapport with him/her.
Racheal,
Right you are. Each the respect of your students and then develop rapport with them. From there on you have a positive learning community in which everyone can grow and be successful if they will put forth the needed effort.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Developing a rapport is important in every aspect of social interaction because if there is no rapport, there is no interest.
Liz,
Trust, confidence, respect and rapport are all words that we need to know and understand in our role as educators. If we offer students these four elements we are going to increase our retention and expand the knowledge of our students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Lydia,
This is the human side of teaching and it is so important as you have indicated. We need to remember our role in the support and modeling aspects of our profession and the results will be rapport with our students and enhanced learning.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Developing a rapport with your students is extremely important in teaching due to the fact that you cannot teach effectively if the students do not trust and respect you and your position. You need to make sure that you know who your students are and why they are enrolled in the program in order to maintain a teaching standard that will help them develop. I taught for several years and I can tell you that I never taught the same class the same way twice due to the fact that the classroom dynamics changed every time. If I had just set myself on a particular path and would not steer from it, I and my students, would not have been successful. You have to learn to teach to the dynamics of your class which means building a rapport with them up front.
Having a rapport with students is so important because not knowing why they have decided to attend school will be a big problem with your retention. Students come to career schools for so many reasons. They sometime have no one to talk to about there dreams and with you being someone the can look up to helps make the day go by so much better. If you can tell a story of how you were in their place before and they now see your success then that is a great place to start building your rapport.
Donna,
I agree. We need to work at earning the respect of our students while they earn our respect. Once that is started it is easy to move to rapport and this sets the stage for an active learning environment.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I believe by building a rapport with students it helps them feel more comfortable opening up and discussing things with the instructor. I think they feel more open to asking questions, sharing experiences without being judged and they are able to communicate better in a classroom setting or talking personally to their instructor.
May-Lin,
Rapport is for me a reward for our teaching. We start a new group of students and earn their respect. Once we earn their respect we start to develop rapport with them as they gain additional knowledge and skill in the field. I just finished a class last night and it was such a great class with great rapport. I already miss them and know that I have to start this process over again with my new class and will feel the same way about it when it is completed. This is what I think keeps us instructors coming back to the classroom and lab over and over.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
The development of rapport is important in teaching because you need to have a personal relationship with the students in your class. You don't want to be a robot at the front of the class who doesn't know or care about their students.
It is important to be friendly and concerned as well as knowledgeable in the material you are teaching.
You gain a students trust and respect this way and I think they become more eager learners as well.
Joy,
As I teach a gen ed course that is required for state certification I can relate to your comments. Students when they first come into the class see no value in what I am teaching, they just want to gut it out and pass, period. Through the earning of their respect and the development of rapport I am able to gain their confidence and trust to the point that they see what I am teaching can actually be used in their careers. Fun to convince them of the value of the course but it is a lot of work and takes the human factor in teaching to help "sell" them on the content.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
