Center Stage
When I was in nursing school, we had a girl who had already worked as a patient care tech for a couple years and therefore, thought she already knew everything. She had a comment about everything, often contradicting or expanding on what the teacher said. We all got so sick of her!
I like the idea brought up in the reading about having participation cards, where a student can only speak as many times as he had cards. I will employ this tactic if I ever have a student like this!
I also agree that the participation cards seem to be a good idea. I will try this method to see how effective it will be to my class.
Hi David,
I generally give these showboat students leadership roles evey opportunity I can.
Patricia
I think these kinds of students can be broken up into two smaller groups. Those who actually engage in the work, and say a lot about the topic, and those who don't.
I had one of each in a recent class. By knowing my students, and my lesson, I was usually able to use the energy of the positive student to my advantage to get the group engaged, and laughing since he enjoyed making odd examples that did fit the course goals and content each day.
I know that the student who only commented to get laughs simply did not buy into the course content and how it applied to him. It was communications, and he was proud that he was a jerk.
I was curious if anyone here had any specific advice for this kind of showboat student?
I confess that I used to be this student. It was only when I came to appreciate the valuable contributions of my fellow students that I finally started talking less.... 'I'm a talkaholic in recovery'
I guess this was my own (informal) lesson in becoming the "observer."
Hi Kathy,
Wow, never allow a student to take over. This student with the outburst should have been made to stop outbursting,otherwise he or should have been removed from the class.
Patricia
I really like the idea of the participation cards and will try and utilize them. I had a student in my class who, every time another student asked a question of me, answered before I could. One of my students was so distracted by his outbursts that she became focused on him throughout the class and not on her own studies.
Hi Jennifer,
Never let students disrespect you. Get you DOE involved if there is a need to handle this type of student.
Patricia
That is a great idea. I had a few students like this last term and it was quite challenging. I was able to keep them quiet for most of the class lectures, but they did not display the most professional or academic attitude towards me.
Another way I have found to handle these students is to put all of the center stage students in the same group working on a difficult project. Let one of the requirements be that they have to elect a spokesperson, and he/she is the only one who can speak outside of the group.
