Hello Christopher,
Great idea of making this student feel very important. In the future, try having a firm conversation with this type of student, it generally works.
Patricia
Hi George,
Great analogy! This is an analogy everyone can use in their classes so that students can understand the relevance of various courses.
Patricia
My most challenging students are the youngest ones. The strategies that I have found effective are talking with them as if they are my age and not 20 years younger than me. I believe they feel a certain level of respect from me and they appreciate that...therefore, they are usually more respectful in class and more eager to do good work.
Hi Hilary,
Focus on the students who want to be there. Do not let the students who do not want to be there spoil it for everyone else.
Patricia
Hi Kimberly,
I like the tactics you use to capture the various speeds of students. It seems to be a nice blend; and it works well.
Patricia
Hello William,
I always put a blurb in my first day presentation, "if you know a lot about this course content, please be humble because I can assure you, you will learn some new things." Remember, no one knows it all, not even me, the instructor.
Patricia
Hello Abigail,
I can attest to this as well. I let the students know immediately, this is college.
Patricia
Hello Aaron,
If you immediately begin to treat them like adults and not high schoolers, most will rise to the standards.
Patricia
Hi Robert,
You're welcome. You will love it!
Patricia
with unfocused student i try to give extra one on one assistance or try to get them involved in discussion
The students that challenge me the most are the "know it alls". Who in reality do not know how much they don't know. Generally I have found that over a few weeks this diminishes, because they recognize the content as new to them.
I still could use some suggestions though how to effectively address this from day one.
Hello Amy,
What type of challenges have you had with the young students?
Patricia
My most challenging students are the young one's. I encourage them by complementing on how hard they are doing and what a great future they will have.
Thank you for your reply, George.
Your idea sounds good and I'll see about implementing a process that will include it in their activities.
Robert
Thank you for your reply, Patricia.
After having tried other approaches, such as being demanding, it seems that the simple procedure of stating the expectations early on and then following through works best overall. No surprises or knee-jerk rulemaking....just calm enforcement of the policies. I'm not in favor if spoon-feeding students, Gen Y or otherwise. How can a person be expected to learn responsibility if they are not held accountable? How this is done, rather than if it is done, seems to make the difference.
I do differentiate between classroom texting and doing the same during tests. They know it going in.
As with any institution, variances between different instructor's and classes' policies adds to the issue.
I have to agree. Younger students right out of high school can be dificult sometimes. I think giving them the oppertunity to act like adults and be treated as such goes along way tword their learning.
I found the most difficult student are those who work a bit faster than the rest or those who work much slower...the way that I try to keep everyone happy is to go over the weeks assignments so that the ones who go a bit faster will have enough work to keep them busy. for those who a bit slower, I have one on one time with them to make sure that they understand clearly, I walk around constantly and if the ones who are faster are too fast, I will ask them to add a bit more detail to channel them, I may show them a couple of complicated tricks that I know what challenges them a bit. the response is usually pretty good and they all have amazing finished products.
Robert, maybe that energy to use electronics could be used to create a student information bank. Armed with the classroom computers (and on a rotational basis as needed) they would be that “person to call” on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” that you know is armed with Google as they wait for the inevitable call. They would field and look up subjects that come up in the classroom. The other item of course is the classroom rule that phones will be off in the classroom.
Students take many classes that they think are just fodder. I was talking to a Dentistry student recently who was telling me that she had to take management classes that she thought were “BS.” I asked her why she thought the university would have her take courses that were not relevant to her major. We then embarked on a discussion of why studying management might be useful in Dentistry. We narrowed down the field to HR management as an example, and it made sense to her that there are certain things that you want to know about management to be successful in any endeavor. There are things you want to know about people, and there are things that you want to know about the business end of your vocation. A case that came to mind was Michael Jackson. As an entertainer, why/how would management skills and knowledge contribute to his success? In hindsight we can see how even a knowledge of finance and accounting would have helped in that case, but the point is, there has to be a relevance realized in the subject matter that seems a waste of time. By knowing our students and paying attention to their participation and success in class on quizzes, projects and so forth, we can gauge their interest in the subject matter which gives us a measure of how relevant they think the material is. I like to tie material to different majors and areas of interest via vignettes that demonstrate “relevancy. “
I've noticed in career colleges more than universities that students expect to be spoon fed. I'm not sure if they see career colleges as an eaisier way out...I think it's a huge misconception.
