competition
Why should we shy away from competition? (i understand the intense competition reference, but all the same, that is realitive). Competition is a part of life, especially in our society/economy, and should be recognized and dealt with as such.
Hi Melissa,
This is so true. We need to understand individual differences so we can customize our instruction as needed.
Gary
I agree. There are to many variables with each individual. If you mistakingly make a student feel inadequate, they could completely shut down and begin to question why they are in school at all.
Hi Rocco,
You are right on about the need to develop confidence in your students. They come from such varied backgrounds that they may not be at ease as they enter the class. By helping them to feel accepted and comfortable in the class you are setting the stage for them to have success.
Gary
Building confidence is a major part of the teaching and learning process. Find the strength and weakness of the students to help you build their confidence. Once they have the confidence you will be able to introduce competitiveness.
Hi Sandra,
You are using the right approach with your students. At this stage in their career training they are best approached individually as you mentioned. This way you can customize your input based upon their needs.
Gary
While competition is a good idea in many settings, I am a clinical instructor and find that competition is not necessarily a good idea. The students are nervous and feel uncomfortable with their skills. I have to take the one on one approach, I shy away from mentioning too much about other students' performance until the confidence levels increase..Patients' lives are at stake
Hi Mark,
I can appreciate your approach to the competition issue. No student should be in a situation where he/she is forced to compete with another student to pass the course. On the other hand, life is a competition in almost everything we do so they need to develop some coping competition skills so they can be successful out in the workplace.
I put my students into teams and they compete in games for review. One that the really like is Jeopardy, another Family Feud. They are competing in groups and not individually and they really rally around each other as they come up with answers. It is a fun time for them and a very effective review for the upcoming quizzes.
I also use learning groups a lot so the students can learn how to work with others to solve problems or case studies. They really like working in this format because they learn to use each others strengths.
Gary
I agree that competition is a reality in the professional world (more in some fields than in others), but it really has no place in the instructional environment (just like office politics, nepotism, unfair evaluations, etc.) It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to learn more or better because they are put in competition with another student. Some students DO learn best in a competitive environment - they usually find a way to create their own competition. Rather than competition, we should be emphasizing cooperation in the classroom - "You're all in this together; let's find a way to work together so that we help each other learn."
Be weary of introducing competitions that are not fair to all students. I had to learn this the hard way. I had a student who had an undisclosed learning disability where it took her longer to understand and answer certain information. I was teaching an accounting class and to help the students learn the terms (spelling and meaning) I divided the class into two groups. We then proceeded to have each group have a member come to the board corretly identify and spell the terms.
One of my students was very upset with me because she was much slower in understanding the material than the other students due to her cognitive abilities.
I love competition, but am careful when using it in the classroom as to not alienate or embarrass students :)
I post all of the students time on the board when we are in the process of setting up for a minor surgical procedure.The whole minor set up should be done in 20minutes,the students start setting up with the time range of 40-45 mins. once they pratice about 4 times the students can look at the board an see their progress sucessfully settting up less than 20 mins which is great. They are not only in competition with their class mates the students end up competing with them selves, that process has work for me in the lab.
Hi Rebecca,
Good point about competition. It has to be used carefully so that students aren't embarrassed or put on the spot.
I use competition in my classes when we review for up coming assessments. I put the students into random teams so there is a good mix of all ages and experiences. I have a Jeopardy game I use and they can't wait to play it because they want to beat the other teams. We also play Family Feud using content from the class. The key is to have fun and review for the assessments. No one is put on the spot because it is a team approach.
Gary
Competition should not be used in the college classroom primarily because of the diversity of student ages. Nontraditional adult students are often concerned that they cannot do as well in the college classroom as the younger students in the class. Using competition would only increase that concern. In addition, older students are fearful of being embarrassed in front of others. Competition would increase the fear that they would not do well and would therefore be embarrassed.
Hi James,
The key is when you introduce competition into the learning process. Some students take a while to build the confidence needed to be successful so they aren't as open to competitive activities right at the beginning of the course, unless the competition is a part of an icebreaker activity. In my classes I put the students into teams the first class meeting and we have a number of different activities we do while competing against each other.
Later on in the course competition is introduced again but within the context of the field and how one can be competitive in the field because you are right, competition is a part of life and the students need to know how to cope with competition.
Gary
