I have a couple of students that are having alot of problems developing practical, hands-on skills that I consider vital for being successful in this field. I have discussed it with them, demonstrated on models and recommended that they get more hands-on experience in the field. What is the best way to help someone who isn't very manually dextrous develop good clinical skills?

I had a hard time recently with keeping my students motivated during the Holiday Season. This module is inherently interesting, Small Animal Surgery for Veterinary Technicians, but they really seemed like they didn't care about the material.I tried to remind them that when they graduate this was something they would be performing on a daily basis, and that it could mean life or death for their patients. However I could tell by their test and quiz scores that they didn't really study over the break. Any tips?

Due to recent bad weather campus was closed and I had to make changes to the syllabus. As soon as class resumed I handed out a revised syllabus that detailed changes to quiz dates, etc. However, some of the students were confused about the dates for the quizzes, despite the fact that it was clearly laid out on the revised syllabus. How can I make this more clear to the students?

I am teaching Veterinary Pharmacology and it seems striking the differences in comprehension and retention among those students who have worked in the field for a while and are familiar with the drugs on a practical level vs those who are new and are learning all from scratch. The practical experience that people have seems to cement the theory of why the drugs work so much more easily than people unfamilar with the drugs. My question would be...how do I make the long lists of drug names and functions more "real" to those without previous exposure?