Motivation is more important in the first few days to establish the mode.

tell lively true stories of your past job exp. be lively move around. change your voice tone or pitch. ask for there exp in the topic or subject.try to pump them up with intersting points of info.

you should use as many props cutaways as you can. talk about your experience on the job and subject. so pictures movies demonstrate tasks ask for assistance with show and tell. ask for there stories or experiances.

i feel there is a connection between the student and the instructor. or there should be. the student needs to know that you are aware of him and his needs and wants.you do not need to be a dictator all the time but still be able to maintaine disapline. if they need help along the way help point them in the right direction if you can.

I feel it is important to support students in the math curriculum by providing help and feedback no matter where they are at. For example, if they are a few sections behind the rest of the class, do not make them feel bad for that....just help them where they are at and encourage them to get a bit more done to catch up. Scott

I struggle a bit with this one as I feel that students need to be challenged. As a result, they often complain and act unprofessional...it is this behavior that runs me down. The challenge is that I am not that sympathetic to their woes...their adults and are choosing to do what they are doing and I want to do my best job for them, but I can't change the curriculum to better suit their needs as it is completely put together by a committee no where near the classroom. Scott

I find it hard to be all things to all people. It always bothers me when I get the feeling that a student isn't to keen on my style, but I am who I am and they too need to meet you in the middle. It is part of working in a professional environment and I feel the teachers part needs to be met...if that is happening I am very comfortable with a disapproving student. Scott

The one thing, I find difficult to do as a teacher of adult learners is correct behavior. When they are talking, using pda's, chewing tobacco, and any other thing you can think of instead of doing work and paying attention. It is a fine line of being respectful and making them feel welcome and getting them to be professional. Any insight others have is welcome! Regards, Scott

Most of my students (at least 50%) are visual learners. They remember visual images much better than orally presented concepts. But I have trouble making subjects like Algebra visual. Anybody have ideas about how to make math visual?

To motivate students instructors should always be positive, incourage student, letting them know that they can do it and to keep positive thoughts about the subject matter. Using words like good job, excellent, and I know you could do it always work for my students. If the instructor is positive then the student will also be psoitive.

I completely understand the benefit for giving timely feedback, but in one module it states that you should try to give back graded material the next day or class meeting. This is probably the most difficult aspect of teaching for me in my particular situation. Small assignments are no problem, but I have essays to grade. I could rush through them and give limited feedback--but what help would that really be? Also, the pay structure for instructors at my school does not offer any pay for hours outside of classroom instruction. I spend more time outside of class correcting and planning for the course than actual classroom instruction, so my question is where is the motivation for the instructor? Yes, yes, I am aware that most of us teach for other reasons than just pay, but it gets frustrating when we are expected to sacrifice our time and family for the benefit of the students and school without any type of compensation for all the extra time and energy we put into making the class as meaningful as possible. Sorry that it seems like I am venting, I am just curious if my thoughts and experiences are an isolated case, or if others feel the same way.

Bring current industry memebers into the class room is a great student motivator. What are some tips on preparing a guest speaker to give positive directed feedback to students?

I agree that one has to monitor the situation and may assign a leadership role to a more mature person in the group; which may be the older student, but not necessarily.

I remember my first try at post secondary education. It was at a local college with poor parking. I can remember being frustrated with a lot of things at this school but the one that finally broke the camel's back was the parking. I ended up quitting because of parking; of all things. It's funny how you bring parking up in this course. We, as instructors, have quite a challenge on our hands to try and get to the bottom of student frustrations. In this course you talk about frustrations due to limitations. I've found one way to help reduce student frustrations and that is not to add to their frustrations by expressing my own. A good example of this is in a course I teach that constantly has limitations in lab. Sometimes the lab trainers can be in such poor condition that it's embarrasing to take students out to work on them. There are two ways to approach this problem. I can either whine about it or I can use it to my advantage by challenging the students to try and make the trainers better. In the latter case they get excited about bettering the previous class and we all leave lab feeling we've accomplished something.

What I have noticed is that the student's level of anxiety tends to affect their performance and experience as well. I have had student's get so anxious while taking a test, that they forget almost everything that they have studied or learned. Then, the student gets frustrated and discouraged. Other than supplying them with information/tips to help with anxiety and offer support, does anyone know any other techniques to help student's dealing with performance anxiety?

I returned to college in my mid-forties for a degree in business, and believe I got much more out of the college experience the second time. Thus, I feel comfortable with the different ages of students; or different generations. I realize the value of their learning styles and how very much they differ; there definitely is a difference in the definition of "patience" in the generations--my challenge--one I enjoy is working to comingle my teaching style to be effective to the different generations.

I have a sibling who is a physician, and she has taught me a great deal about the importance of mnemonics in teaching. I have also worked with the students a great deal in developing acronyms that make sense to them and work with their learning style to help them be successful. I am a true believer in memorization with mnemonics and acronyms.

I am intensely interested in this topic. I have tried in all the years I have taught to make absolutely certain--inasmuch as I can--that the students know they are the reason I am there, and how privileged I am to be in the classroom with them. They offer me more than I can ever teach them, and I learn so much from them that I look forward to what they offer each and every class period.

This course has been very helpful in reinforcing the fact that it is so important to be respectful and courteous and acknowledge the differences in the personalities of the students and applaud their successes by encouraging their individual and group participation during classtime. I have been committed to drawing out those who appear as though they would like to contribute, but need to know that the support for them to do so is there by the empathy shared, or the connectivity felt at the first class session. I have been encouraged by the results I have seen by gently and consistently encouraging all students to participate and know their ideas have value.

In the “Make Students Active Participants in Learning” section there is an example of offering mini-lectures and than having the students apply the concept allowing them to become active learners. This is a very common technique I use. The problem I have is there are some students that finish the lab before others. I want to give all my students the time they need to “get” the concept –I never rush the slower ones. I tell my students that if they are done early to start working on next weeks homework assignments. Does anyone have other ideas of what to do with the faster students so they are not just sitting there waiting for others to finish?