Get Your Students Hired
flipping the model is a good way of approaching this - allowing them to teach in terms of workshopping with other students or placing them in groups and telling them to figure it out. This generation is quite industrious and like fast results so time limits and clear objectives seem to work.
Thomas ,
yes, the small groups do work well provided they are structured & focused on an objective/goal.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
When teaching Anatomy I found a website that has games, like finding bones and muscles wile being timed. I make it competitive by having them compete against each other to see who can get the higher score. Playing the game and having fun wile they see the information over and over again helps them memorize bones and muscles location.
I will keep doing my best to inspire my students to be curious about language and vocabulary and to embrace it as something that is self-empowering as more skill is acquired.
Krista,
What a great idea! Some aspects of a game show that keeps the interest of the students. I think I will try something like this in my classes. Ways to engaged the Yers.
Thanks,
Tom
What has worked is small group presentations in class of relevant course materials. After studying in this course, I am reminded to use small groups more often. Especially when the classes are bigger. This has been a very helpful aspect of this course.
Thanks,
Tom
Laura,
yes, the more we can connect the classroom to the real world, the more the students will really see the value.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Relate the content that I am trying to teach them to the real world and to actually make them practice procedures and guide them to do the procedure without requesting a specific way just demanding accurate result
Jonathon,
yes, these real life examples help them connect the concepts to real life.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Use real stories from the field that they can relate to, or relate the material to. Helps give it a purpose.
Paula ,
keep at it & keep pushing them. The crazy thing is there are so many classic books now available to download even to smartphones, even audio books, if we can just get them to use them!
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Thank you, Dr. Meers. I try my best, of course. I believe that Kindle Fire and iPad and other similar devices are rekindling (a pun here...) students' interest in reading more. I think what is really scary, though, is that students listen to language and hear words they don't understand -- but don't ask what the words mean, when this happens. I have seen this happen a lot in classes I teach, and it is a bit scary. I encourage all my students to use the aps they can quickly access nowadays to look up words and their etyology, and trying my best to instill curiosity for language.
Paula ,
it sounds like you are doing a great job of meeting the need for the students. I too have noticed this lack of skills with English abilities.
Dr. Ryan Meers
Among my Generation Y students, I've noticed a significant lack of a solid grasp of grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary skills. I presume this is because the Generation Y students do not read nearly as much as previous generations. Therefore, their inherent understanding of and application of the language in written form is not as advanced. Many have yet to discover the symmetry and beauty of the written word.
Whenever possible, I make it a point to focus attention on vocabulary words I am fairly certain they don't know -- and interestingly, they don't inquire about -- when the word in encountered in a sentence.
I've found that using these opportunities to encourage a group discussion is effective, when pointing out vocabulary or grammar/punctuation usage in the context of sentences we encounter in the written material encountered in their daily curriculum.
Students are becoming more passionate about language and are able to cite rules of usage and also have wider vocabularies, as a result. I try to incorporate literature -- creative nonfiction, short stories, for instance -- into the material covered, in addition to the prerequisite legal and medical terminology that makes up the major part of their course content.
This literary type of material contains more human interest, in nature, and a wider vocabulary, typically, and the nuance of poetry, too, at times, thus making the language more alive. The students' attention is sparked by what is happening in the story aspect of what is being read, and thus drawn closer to the power of language, as well as its diverse beauty.
Todd,
this is so true; defining "immediate feedback" really is key as we all have different ideas of what this means.
Dr. Ryan Meers
Being a member of Gen X, I started with the assumption that three-week long courses provided sufficient feedback for Gen Y learners, but this has proven to not be the case. They tend to like immediate feedback on their performance throughout the course and opportunities to learn from their mistakes. We have successfully divided each of the two courses I primarily instruct into two and three day modules, each including an in class lecture, a home assignment that can be done individually or in groups, a lab and test. This allows me to provide each student with a progress report about every third day and they seem to appreciate the ability to get quick feedback so that they will know what they've learned, where they made their mistakes, and sometimes have the ability to go back and revisit those mistakes to make corrections before the course is over.
First of all, I try to break them up in groups and give them a short amount of time to come up with a subject that the group agrees on and then follow it up with a presentation or skit. They like to take charge so I let them.
Also, I at least once a week bring up an on-the-job experience that I encountered while I was working in my specific field that I worked in and am now teachisng be it pro or con. This way, they can prepare themselves for those type of experiences or instances that they might encounter on the job.
Ray,
this is a great idea to keep the students engaged & does not cost anything.
Dr. Ryan Meers
Miriam,
and I think this also helps them see that not every situation is the same, but the skills applied are.
Dr. Ryan Meers
I have use several types of communication pieces in one class. I change from the white board, power point, and book. It is imperative that one tactic is not done for two long.