Some students have internal brakes applied to their ablities and need direction in ensuring, Yes I CAN. This may require obtainng self actualization of whom they think they are and what they are presenting to others. Facing that they may require to change their social behavior in order to achieve their true desire in changing their plot in life. Learning at this time really becomes self motivate.

I enjoyed this exercise as it allowed a view into building up the students confidence to increase his participation.

Some students need to know that the instructors are listening to their concern and responding to their questions in a manner in which is understandable to them.

Instructors with experience in the field they teach, make better instructors than those who do not have any work experience prior to teaching. Instructors with outside work experience allow students to learn more skills, and reinforce their abilities to achieve their goals. The instructor is able to become a role figure that has succeeded in finding a job using what he or she learned from similar classes. Students are practical, and goal oriented. When an instructor shares his or her work experiences with his or her class, this is a good motivation strategy.

One great way to make students enjoy your class and gain their trust and build a rapport is to actually make students believe that you really care for their profession. Interest in their profession makes students eager to behave in class, eager to demonstrate worthiness. An instructor must make his or her students believe they will gain skills from class, enough to go out to the real world and make a difference!

It seems like in every course I teach I end up spending some time on active listening. In the age of multi-tasking my students believe they can do many things at the same time, but I have to convince them that they are probably not doing any of the things very well. At least, not as well as they would if they do one at a time. A great exercise is I'll have two students read from different articles of a magazine at the same time for about 45 secs. I'll then ask the audience what the articles were about, usually not one person can give any detail beyond a word or two that they heard in each article. Then I'll have them pick one reader to listen to and sit up, make eye contact and really focus on the words the reader is saying. Then I will have the readers read again. This time when I ask what the articles are about the audience is usually able to give better summaries. They really get to experience the difference between hearing and actively listening. It really helps to build better classroom habits.

When an instructor is enthusiastic, it shows. Students become interested in learning why an instructor likes what he or she teaches. Providing real life examples to what an instructor teaches, is part of that enthusiasm.

There are many nontraditional students who attend class the first day with frustrations, fears, and little skill, but go on to learn, by time that they can achieve their goals, add to their life experiences and even build strong friendships with their peers. This stems form a supportive instructor, a healthy class environment, adhering to clear rules, being fair, acceptance by classmates, encouragement, and motivation.

The instructor must provide motivation in order to get the students motivated. It is imperative for a student to be intrinsically motivated; which may stem from extrinsic factors.

An instructor's flexibility, an understanding that babies do come early, families experience the death of a friend or loved one, blizzards prevent travel to class, illness of student or child takes priority encourage motivation

Performing a mid-course evaluation will give you the pulse of the class. By knowing how the students are progressing in the course you will know that you are right on course with their training or if you need to make any changes.

Learning the student names shows the respect you have for them and for the identity they carry through their names. This helps you to develop rapport with your students and get the course off to a good start.

Helping students understand career goals need to be based upon informed decisions, realistic aspirations, and meaningful outcomes.In addition, it helps when the students to work through these three career goal components as they progress through the course.

The best motivation I use in class is talking about the students future job opportunities in the field. This can be from talking about current job openings, different types of jobs, what's expected, tools used on certain jobs. When I get them all focused in one direction. The material is no longer a conveyed with lecture, but turned into a discussion.

Most of my material I know thoroughly and on occasions have accidentally quoted the book verbatim. It's only happenstance and when you catch yourself doing it takes the wind from your sails. Before I give the same lecture I try to tweak something about the subject to keep the material seem new and exciting. In my opinion the energy of the class comes from the educator.

Setting the tone when students first approach the classroom is very important to a successful class. If they feel respected, understand the course requirements, and understand the pace of the class everything typically goes smoothly. On the other hand if you have a bad day on the first day of class, then the outcome is fairly poor. For an example if a policy has recently changed from the student's last class it causes an opportunity for animosity. Some students revert back to a high school complaining mentality and it's nearly impossible redirect those students.

In my opinion there is a time and place for everything. Every student has a separate goal of what they want to get from their education. There should always remain a constant that the material is understood. My problem was trying to stretch myself out to cuddle age and cultural diversity. I may have a class with a student going to school in order to stay out of jail and an retired veteran using his GI benefits to pay his rent. Unfortunately both these students aren't looking to improve their career and waste class time. In my opinion there's a limit that if the student ventures to far out you might as well let them fall off the edge, or they'll just end up taking the rest of the class down with them.

I have a few older adult students who like to help out the younger students.

It seems to me that an important part of student retention is to help students become successful by providing examples of what they are learning based on the real world experience of myself and others in the related industry or field. Leaving things open for students perspectives as well. Personal attention and understanding that, as a teacher, I am there to encourage and help give the student the tools to reach their goals.

I think students need time to prepare themselves for school by taking a break. I find students with life experience have a better understanding of ht it takes to succeed in a classroom. "They no what they don't want!"