Seeing from my students' perspective
The point made in this module about adult students being tired in class really hit home. Some of my students have multiple kids, they may have full-time jobs, or part-time jobs, and a host of other things outside of class. My class is from 8:00 - 9:50 p.m. I work full-time in additino to teaching, and I recently had a guest speaker. I was able to sit in the classroom, and although my speaker was interesting and fun, I still had a hard time staying awake after putting in a full day at work. I really want to start using more engaging activities to help keep my students more involved, and make class more interesting.
I totally agreee. I have my students up and moving throughout most of the class.
Keep your activities short and you will not have this worry.
Your students mist appreciate that opportunity.
I agree with what you have to say about students being so tired. I try to allow student time to work on assignments in class so they can have more time with their families.
I’ve never tried activities in my classes. Mostly worried about it taking up to much time or the students not wanting to participate. But I do see the benefits.
The more we appreciate the differences in our learners, the more we learn from them.
INSIGHT INTO ALL MINDS IS A GREAT ADVANTAGE IN HELPING WITH LEARNING PROBLEMS
Leyann, everyone learns best through involvement. You examples prove that.
I agree with you Rick, the adult student is very unique each having their own, different life requirements/obstacles. During Medical Terminology I incorporate the students everyday as active participants, going around the room having them pronounce medical words, spontaneously calling on someone to take over saying combining forms, suffixes, prefixes along with their meanings. Today we played Medical Terminology Jeopardy, having lots of fun and learning !
If you were to set aside 5 minutes in class to give them these types of activities to students and form teams to compete to complete them, everyone will benefit.
I often try to reinforce learning with homework on lectures and seem to find that they do not always complete their homework at home, being so busy. Would setting aside class time be better? At times I involve ungraded class assignments.
Rick, you are right to recognize this challenge and plan activities to deal with it.
