Get Your Students Hired
It is so funny to read this module and relate it back to my first day as an Instructor. First of all I shadowed the Instructor that I was replacing in the actual class I would be taking over for the betterpart of 2 weeks. I felt that I was well prepared. My first day I was literally like a deer in the headlights. It was as though I could not find my voice. The truth is I did not know what my teacher voice was yet. I am a Medical Instructor and the Medical field is so varied that you may work in one area and never utilize skills you learned in school. If you work in different medical specialty you may utilize a entirely different group of clinical skills. I thought I was relating to my new class by telling them that I would be learning along with them as some of the theory/applications they would be learning I hadn't used since college. This was obviously a mistake and no surprise that 2 students complained to the Dean (my immediate supervisor)that I did not "know anything". I apologized to the class the next day saying that I made a mistake in presenting myself in such a way as to not allow them to have confidence in me. I went on to explain my many successes and experiences working in the medical field which boosted my confidence in my teaching ability as well as their confidence in my ability to teach them. I had found my voice!
I was fortunate to have an instructor who coached me not to share with my first class that I was a new instructor. The truth is as a professional I have been teaching all the time thru mentoring new nurses, teaching nurses aids I worked with, patient teaching and as a high school teacher for a short time. It definitely was different but I acknowledged all my previous skills.
I am also a new instructor and have made the mistake of telling a class or two this with little negative consequences. I generally begin my first class with new students by first introducing myself and going through my background and experiences with them then I move to them. I ask them to give me their background and tell me about why they chose to get into this field. It has been working pretty well so far.
Hi James,
Great, you do not have a problem when students questioning your knowledge base. Continue to prove to your students that you are extremely knowledgeable with the subject matter and well qualified for the position.
Patricia Scales
I did that too - said that I was new to teaching. But after doing so, I explained that I was more than qualified to teach the course and I ran through all of my career experience with them. I talked terms that they never heard before and were probably way over their head, but I feel that helped with proving my experience. I think that this also helped to gain the attention of my students. Don't get me wrong though, my knowledge and experience are questioned constantly and probably will be until I retire. I think that sometimes it is just a student's nature to try and prove an instructor wrong or that they know more than the instructor. This happens mostly with students already in that field and with younger students. It happens to me at least once a semester. I think that all you can do is try to justify why you are qualified to teach. Being questioned constantly is actually a good way of keeping me on my toes and up to date on what I am teaching.
I have been there myself. I too am in the medical field and took over a class from someone that had very soft requirements and rules in the classroom. I went in full force and changed everything overnight and alienated a lot of the students by doing so. They new I was an inexperienced instructor and ran with that, also going to the dean and complaining. I almost quit, it was the toughest six weeks I had experienced since basic training in the Army. Being a new instructor is a balancing act that is hard to know where to draw the line and what you need to be concrete with. I was lucky, I had a great mentor that helped me out a lot and I am thankful to her everyday.
Hi Noel,
What if's can be a big down fall for new instructors. You can work yourself into a tizzy with all the what if's. As you stated, let the students have input into the lesson and all the narrating is not on you, and it puts some of the accountability on the student.
Patricia Scales
I made the same exact mistake too. I stated that I was a new instructor and new to teaching, so please bare with me and have some patience. WELL, needless to say...."THEY ATE ME ALIVE"! They complained that I didn't know anything and that I was not qualified in teaching them. When infact, I was, but they didn't see it that way. So I did the same thing and had to go in the next day and apologize and explain how I am qualified. I don't suggest to anyone that they announce they are a new instructor.
I can identify with this feeling that you experienced 100% being a new instructor myself. I recall during my first teaching day, at the first few minutes, a strong feeling of nervousness suddenly took precedence over my 'supposed to be' feelings of confidence to teach (I thought I was so confident to start with due to my considerable knowledge of the subject matter plus the length of experience I had in the professional field). My focus was greatly disrupted by that feeling even though I was telling myself quietly that these are baseless feelings. The more I thought about my nervousness, the more I was falling victim to the distasteful, unwanted feeling. Questions started to pull up in my mind: What if they see I am nervous?, What if they pose a question that I couldn't answer?, What if..etc, etc. At one particular brief moment, I knew I had to act quickly.. and, fortunately, at that precise time, a thought occurred where I decided to change the focus of the conversation. I did just that. I started to ask them a good number of questions related to their interests and quests for success in the course. I'd say, I went from a 'narrating and informing' mode to an 'interrogating and questioning' mode. I posed questions that dealt with their objectives as a student, as a person and an individual, and asked how they intend to attain their objectives. That effectively got my nervousness to decline and eventually disappear. We had a good conversation, and it was sweet sailing from there onwards for the duration of the class. I got back on track talking about the Syllabus and course outline, expectations and teaching methodologies, etc. I thought I'd share this experience as I am convinced that the technique worked a great wonder for me that day, and that logically, I believe it can and should likewise work for new teachers in the field if ever they find themselves in a similar situation.