Student Retention
I have found that creative teaching styles helps to keep the student interested and coming back. What works for the rest of you?
For student retention, I try to back up teaching material with a real world example that is either interesting or slightly funny after teaching a tough topic. It provides contrast and peaks interests or creates a small amount of humor that is based on a true story. I find it a good way to get students to relate and remember content through sharing a story. It also is a good way to create a small segue from a tough topic to revisit with new perspective and briefly open up discussion. The brief discussion helps students to share their own experiences and therefore they feel more valued because they contribute as well or ask questions. It can quickly identifies what is being demonstrated in class can occur in the field. In short they identify the value of what is being taught and they create value through their participation.
As an added bonus I always review everyday after the break (before the 2nd half of class) so students actually come back to class on time if not early just to ask questions, take notes, and make sure they get the reinforcement in specific parts of the course they need help or want to explore. Not only does this help with retention, students often try to get the most out of their learning in between breaks as well.
Sherry,
Yes, you do. With even the best of planning things change and you have to modify your lessons and/or delivery. A fact about teaching is that it never is boring.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
being flexible, sometimes, you have to change styles of teaching mid-stream if you are not finding good results
David,
Students like variety and change of pace. The more we can offer both the more engaged our students will be.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Varied teaching styles, finding time to offer personalized attention, and taking the time to support struggling students are all key components to retention in my opinion.
Stanley,
I've found that building immediate rapport with students helps establish an environment of trust and respect. And from there, I can move on to being able to better understand my students and the different methods I need to use to keep them interested throughout the course. The idea is that an interested student is then more receptive to "out of the box" teaching methodologies and they keep coming back for more.
-Brian
