I recognized very early on in my career how participation could be so subjective in nature. Therefore, I tried to make my participation/professionalism category of my grade as objective as possible. I use a five point scale for each class meeting. The students can earn a point for completing each of the following: being on time and not leaving early, prepared for class (have writing utensil, paper,etc), wearing student ID (which is required at our school and most careers), participating in class, having assignments completed that are not designated as graded assignments. If they are absent, then I can't see any of the subcategories. It results in a "0" for the day. I have never had a student dispute this grade with me. They actually tell me that they know what this part of the grade is in my class compared to some of the other instructors in our college.

Providing status reports provide the avenue to successfully complete the class.

Pretesting is a great way to find where you will have to me more detailed in the content you present.

Developing the criteria is essential to measure what you want the student to learn.

Being organized is part of the role model perception students should get and model

So many new instructors believe that they need to entertain their students with powerpoints, but they incorrectly use them. These instructors will use powerpoint presentations week after week. They read the slides to the students. It is especially hard in an evening class for four hours where students have spent all day at work and then come to a "movie show" for a class. I think it would be enough to put anyone to sleep. Powerpoint is not meant to be the whole presentation. It should only be used as a visual in an oral presentation (class lecture or demonstration). Powerpoints are suppliments not the material itself. We as instructors need to be high tech but not for the sake of just being high tech. Learning must be our first priority and then technology.

In the past I've projected PowerPoint presentations directly onto the the whiteboard as an 'overlay' for some of my Drafting Fundamentals' classes. That allows me to show proper drafting techniques and equipment usage while still having the additional information provided by the powerpoint slide. Not the best way to do it, not the easiet way to read a slide, but it's rather effective for its purpose.

Guest Speakers and Field Trips are great ways to show students that you are not the only one who "says ....." Adult students often want to know how what they are learning in the classroom will relate to the real world. Guest speakers are usually seen by the students as someone who has been there in the real world. Field trips also give the students a glimpse of the real world. Both of these things encourage student learning and give the instructor credibility.

One exercise that I do that works well with breaking the class into small groups is dividing up the lesson based on objectives and assigning those objectives from the book to each group. Each group then has about 30-40 minutes to prepare and then they are the Instructors for the day. My students always have a lot of fun with this activity and really learn well from their classmates. I act as a moderator and help guides the learning lessons.

After every class, I review my attendance roster and email each student with what was missed and plainly outline policy for make up work. It is actually fairly easy given I mostly cut and paste from my lesson plan. I find this works well and also gives both the student and myself a document to work from if any discussions arise regarding missing class.

I teach Intro to Computers and find that my typical class features the 18 year olds who do not know life without a computer and can teach the class to the 50 year olds who have never used a computer before. During the first week of class, I can easily spot who is having trouble using a mouse and who is a wiz. I make all of my projects group work and assign tasks to each group member. We rotate with each assignment. This gives opportunity for all to help eachother learn. I find this strategy helps the learning process by giving the "computer wiz" an opportunity to practice helping others - which they will be called upon to do in the real world" as well as a great environment for others to receive assistance from multiple people. I find it difficult in a large class to give my whole time to 2 or 3 students. This seems to work well for me.

Greetings, One thing that I have found very beneficial in my usage of the blackboard/whiteboard is to not turn my back to the students. I try to face the class and write their thoughts on the board. This seems to keep them engaged while I am attempting to work toward group agreement about a certain topic. I also use multiple color markers when writing on the board to help keep the topic colorful and easy to follow.

Greetings. I am a part time IT instructor and a full, corporate IT manager. Prior to that, I was a consultant and did services for over 60 different companies around the world. I teach introductory IT courses and consider it the highlight of my day. When I am teach my courses, I always mention jobs based around the discussion topic is used in some of the various companies I have work for and give a sample job description and working conditions. I also mention salary and career paths. It appears that all of my students enjoy hearing about the various jobs and occasionally I have a student come by during break or after a class and ask for a little more information about the topic.

I find it ambiguous when deciding exactly how much and what type of extra credit should be offered. Some instructors add extra credit onto a test while others offer projects specifically for extra credit. What is a general rule of thumb?

Although many instructors go above and beyond to get their students exicted about learning it can still be difficult to get everyone on board and wanting to learn. Besides the suggestions offered in this module (e.g. relating new content to the chosen career, multimodal learning, various methods of instruction etc.) what can an instructor do to get students engaged?

Guest speakers and field trips are very helpful in the classroom. Students love field trips because they get a chance to leave the classroom setting. Guest speakers motivate them to do there best in school so that they can be sucessful in their field.

how do we know they are learning?

Does anyone have any good suggestions for multisensory learning for a language class? We already cover visual, hearing and tactile pretty well but I find it hard to incorporate smell or taste. Suggestions?

I love these ideas. It really gets hard at times to determine the best way to evaluate your students.

Although my college library offers both "subject study groups with a teacher" and tutors, I find that pairing a struggling student up with a successful student in that same class works very well.