Having graduated from high school in 1966 I can tell you I was bored to death. How things have changed. Keeping the students involved is very important for their learning experience. Having been a professional soccer coach I was the master of improv. You learn how to adjust. That is how you need to run your classroom now. Lecture if you must but make it exciting, keep the students involved by asking how they would apply what they just learned and don't wait for the lecture to end. Jump in anytime with a question or example.

I had never thought of giving a pretest to let the students become familliar with the class content

for a new instructor, being prepaired for the class is much easier with the correct tools to teach the class

Help! I have a student who is in a group project. However, she can be pretty disruptive... She is not interested in participating in the group and as a result at times becomes disruptive in terms of her behavior. Any suggestions? Ahhh, allow me to be specific. She will be in a group of 4 and while in computer lab will play around in her Facebook as oppose to working with the team to do the research necessary. It seems, I have to constantly, stand around their area in order for her to stay on task. The other group members are getting fed up? She is a College student I might add.

Thanks in advance for any time and attention you can offer to this question my friends. First, I am grateful for this training and at the same time i has become more clear that my particular industry poses quite a few challenges when it comes to professional development. In my case, I hope to create online curriculum on par with several longer standing and well respected institutions of higher education, and hoped you might offer a few thoughts or suggestions in this regard? I do recognize there is a pertinent class here at MaxKnowledge and would like to hear your assessment of this training program as well.

by doing small lectures the students have a better chance of retention

how much time you put into preparing for the course will give a good impression to the student

Doing or including more activities as part of the class will keep the students more involved in the lesson and participation wil not be a issue

Find diffent ways to motivate students specially when the class is boring

For clinical rotation, I have my student paired up with the employee in the facility! They shadow them what the employee is doing and probably assisting the employee with their task! As an instructor, I'm making my rounds making sure the students are doing their procedures/skills that they learn from class and not violating any rules/policies like infection control! And if I know that one student is not being productive, I worked with that student and focus on her/him making sure he/she will learned the skills/procedure the right way! And if I know that the students is doing well, I just checked on them every now and then making sure they keep practicing on their skills! This is my routine for the clinical rotation! One of my student asked me in a sarcastic way "What did you do for the day like your agenda for the day? Did you just walked around the facility?" Am I doing the right thing? Or do I need to change my practice of teaching in clinical rotation?

Since I teach at an automotive technical school it would stand to reason for our rooms to be full of automotive type material. Not so! The rooms here are very bland (beige) and very little is in the room to help with the learning enviroment. You could teach computer science in any of the 5 rooms I have to use for my Hot Rod and Ford classes. Windows would be nice but again the rooms are on the interior of the building. Sun light would have to be shipped in from afar. Music is also banned and no outside material is allowed in for fear of being sued for it's use. Got any ideas?

I was once told. "To be a good teacher you must first be a good student"! How right he was. Grand Master Doc Fi Wong taught me as much about being an istructor as he did about martial arts. I seriously doubt he had that in mind when he took me on as one of his students but it happened none the less. Knowing your subject is great but you can always learn more. Just look how computers have changed our world. You must be able to adapt to situations that can't be forseen, situations you can't control, and show the students you are willing to do as much as possible to make their learning experience a great experience. My favorite line is - "Since were all hear we might as well learn something". You should never stop learning.

This is challenging and satisfying when all come together.

I have found with our diverse student population, finding a common ground is my best way to asure an ease as far as being a part of the class. When all of the students assist and help one another with class material,diversity and language comprehension is lessen all around!

There's no doubt that good communication makes all the difference in the world. Communication is on the top of the list for most students with their instructor. In developing my ommunication skills, I look back at my expereience as a student and ask myself how can I best communicate with my students, what was missing for me and I use that as a quide-line. Keeping in touch with my Association, News papers, and any other source I can extract information from helps with my communication skills.

If we as instructors use multiple testing formats for our students, because of the difference in formats the student will need to put forth perhaps a little more effect for the exam. This is to the benefit of the student.

I think that active learning in the classroom is a great tool for students because it allows them to engage themselves in both analytical and critical thinking. Working all aspects of their brain. It allows them to utilize the various resources available to them engaging each other, the teacher,to discover the most useful information.

Some students are really, really shy and when you ask them to introduce themselves they normally talk very soft and just say their name.When you allow time in class for them to select a partner and they tell them a little about themselves, they forget all about being shy. It's normally easier to introduce someone else rather than yourself.

What are some ways you work with students and the coursework that aren't directly related to their area of study, i.e. they have less time/energy put into learning the material?

discussion and real world application raises engagement of content leading to experience which leads to confidence which leads to the possibility of achievement which in turn drives achievement. if they don' believe they can, they won't.