Activity
Provide a safe environment to foster student curiosity and encourage student questions. Also, develop a class culture that seeks to support failure as a means of learning and gaining a deeper understanding of the content. Frequent room rearranging can also lead to increased student engagement.
Am I interested? Can I do this? Does it matter? A new direction in how I design my lesson planning from now on. Hopefully, this will
engage a greater number of students, make the class more interesting to them, an demonstrate a higher level of acheivement from the students.
I generally try to identify a real-world event where the students will need to apply what they have learned in class in order to provide a needed service at the event. This gives both the
opportunity to demonstrate their skills and serve the customer for real. In the build up to the event, they can practice and sharpen their skills in the classroom/lab, and build confidence
for the big day.
Learn to learn from everyone.
It is important for the students to have the opportunity to explore a multitude of careers, even within the same industry. They may find something that they truly enjoy, or happen to be good at, and it may not have occured to them initially. I also believe that it is important for the student to identify what they do not want to do.
It would be wise to teach the students that Professionalism doesn't just mean "I dressed up." It also means keeping up to date on technical and job skills, good communication practices, and being easy to work with.
So far I have learned about the importance of teaching leadership skills to students from the get-go, and not to delay this important aspect of career readiness. I intend to apply it by changing how I set-up the group projects in my classes.
Technology within the classroom setting can take many forms, and it should be used in conjuction with the hard-skill curriculum. The Instructor must also be familiar with the technology (software and hardware) in order to give the student solid instruction.
Clearly defining the role of each team member will greatly benefit the cohesion of the team.
It appears that employers value soft skills and critical thinking skills above some content skills. Content skills can be refined by hands-on
work, either on the classroom or on the job. Critical thinking and problem solving skills can also be refined on the job, but should probably have a foundation to build on first.
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