One thing I find challenging is where to draw the line between being friendly/entertaining, while of course being informative, and being a bit more hard-nosed. Some of my students seem to be on the verge of un-interested in being there, and I fear that any forceful presentation may scare them off. Some of them need this forceful presentation, because they're "slacking off".... Any ideas on how to strike this balance?

My class involves music theory and production techniques. I am 41 years old, yet my students are around 20-25 years old. Part of the course involves listening to music examples to ear train. I am pretty "out-of-touch" with much of today's music, and am heavily biased towards classical/jazz, and pop from the '70s through the mid '90s. I believe much of the current music scene is garbage, and offers little in content valuable to my class. How do I capture the imagination and interest of my students using music they may not know and appreciate?

My desire is to grow personally/professionally as an instructor, but I find it difficult when teaching new, neophyte students. I would like to introduce advanced concepts/techniques, but I spend most of my time delivering a simplified course content. Any ideas on how to push the students, and myself at the same time?

I find it challenging to determine the best split between demonstrating/discussing subjects, versus letting students jump into "uncharted waters" in their lab time. My class deals with music theory/production, and most of my students are are "square one", with little or no prior experience. Any ideas?

I find it very powerful to ask the students to solve potential problems as opposed to give a boring lecture...comments?

Is it better to start with the students introducing themselves to the class , or yourself first?

how long are your students REALLY paying attention during a lecture? also , would somebody consider using instructional DVDs?

some students seems to be taking classes without any motivation at all.they are there just so they have something to do. how to deal with those students?

One thing that I was surprised with my first attempt as an instructor was how unmotivated most of my young students (18-24 years old) were. Assuming that they would be very motivated after having paid a lot of money for the course was the wrong assumption. The field that they are trying to get into involves a lot of physical labor along with generally alot of long days. Everytime we would try to get into any physicl labor it was a chore just getting people to join in on the project. I'm also a parent of two boys and have already went through the teenage years with one and ready to start those years with the second so I have experienced from the home front. Does anybody have suggestions in getting and keeping the students motivated?

Greetings, Perhaps I can get some help here. I have no problems establishing myself as "leader" in the classes but I always end up struggling with this later in the semester. This has been true _every_ semester I've taught for six years. It seems I must do something drastic to re-establish the "leader" role. Any ideas? Thanks!

Practical examples sometimes spring up a perfect times. I just posted two blank messages after entering the subject "Learning Styles" and hitting the enter key on my keyboard. Through the process of learning by trial and error, I was reminded that I needed to hit the tab key. I promise I'm not making this up:) Okay, so now onto my post about learning styles. Firstly, I read a couple of other posts in this modulee forum indicating that Module 4 contained the most useful information of the course; I agree. Not so much in terms of "new" information, but in terms of information that works its way out of our consciousness over time. As related in one of my first posts, I rely primarily on lecture for content delivery, and I learned long ago that to be effective as a lecturer, you must be part orator, academic, comedian, actor, etc. What I have apparently forgotten is that learning styles do vary greatly and that lecture just doesn't cut it for some. I suppose that I have not forgotten this entirely since I still use video resources, power-point presentations and other delivery methods, but rather, I have forgotten why I do so, in terms of structuring content delivery to meet the various learning styles of my students. This "re-discovered" knowledge has given me the idea that I will have students fill out a short,simple, learning style self-assessment at the beginning of each term. It will read: I believe that I learn best by: Hearing Reading Watching Doing and maybe another choice or two. I will then ask them to rate these in order of greatest ability to learn- 1-4 (or 5 or 6) I can then balance my delivery methods based on the greatest needs of the class. Thanks for a great idea.

In my last class the age spread was from 18 to 42. While it is not always that wide, I find a consistent trend towards the older students being self-motivators. I'm sure we all realize several obvious reasons for this such as maturity, life experience and the fact that older students are attending class on their own accord rather than their parents sending them! However, I cannot help thinking that if I did a better job relating to the younger students, (I'm 38) motivating them would be immensely easier. I believe motivation is so important because for some of the younger students who come in with the attitude of just wanting to know the answers for the test, motivation is what will get them engaged. I just know that I can do a better job and have an easier time motivating the younger crowd. As I said, I think learning to relate to them is a key place to start. Does anyone else experience this? Does anyone have any suggestions?

I find motivating students to be one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. To explain this fully requires some generalization about students "today". At the outset I must say that while this generalization is intentional, I fully recognized that not all students are the same. I know this to be true from my own classrooms where I find many motivated students. This said, it is my observation that students today tend to be extremely difficult to motivate. After reading the materials presented in module #3, I better understand causation, but will have to think further about how to address the "causes". Particularly, the module points to: "Appreciation for the value of learning" "Expectation of success" "Belief that performance is realted to reward" In my experience, many students do not value learning, they simply want to complete the degree requirements for purposes of career opportunity/advancement. So, many view my course, not as a learning opportunity, but as another task to complete. Concerning expectation of success- Yes,students are concerned about making the grade and passing the course; so much so that it tends to be their sole focus. However, they do not correlate this success with effort, dilligence, or learning. And finally, the belief that performance is related to reward seems to be a foreign concept to many students. I think all understand that hard work does pay off, but I fully believe that they believe there to be easier ways to obtain the "pay off", so they resist putting in the work. In closing I must refer to my earlier disclaimer: I do know that not all students are alike; I have many hard-working, motivated students. BUT generally speaking, it just seems that students don't "get it". Finally, no, I am not a cynical, grizzled, college instructor who does not like students. The only reason I teach is because I enjoy students, and I go to great lengths to motivate them to LEARN. I simply become increasingly frustrated when it seems to continually fall on deaf ears?

Does anyone percieve a difference between the teaching environment-from an instructor's point of view, and the learning environment-from a student's point. It occurs to me that they are one in the same, but that there may be differences depending on perspective.

The topic 1 module discusses Instructional Style in general terms; briefly mentioning "lecture style of instruction". No other instructional styles are listed or are discussed. After reading the section I began thinking about my style of instruction, and could only determine that it was probably a lecture style, but one that is very interactive. I am interested in examples/descriptions of other instructional styles, anybody care to offer?

when exactly can one be considered a buddy?

this is the most useful of all the lessons, thanks and you should consider adding more examples of the different delivery and demonstration methods.

Are there any "good for all" motivation "tricks" you can recommend?