In the previous module, the given example in Gen Y general "erosion of trust in authority" troubles me, as I see it politically askew. The given example is the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. I would argue that scandals such as 1. Thomas-Hill; 2. Iran-Contra; 3. The 1992 L.A. Riots (to name only 3) are more persuasive examples that lead to an "erosion of trust in authority." I look forward to your thoughts and discussion.

Are cell phones really the distraction responsible for disengaging your students? Most students have cell phones aka mobile devices and many of them are glued to them all day and night. Educators often view this as a major problem or distraction in their classrooms and I used to agree however in recent discussions while listening to an Instructor complain about the use of cell phones in their class it got me thinking. Is it really worth the energy it takes to police students utilizing their mobile devices? Hardly, in fact it’s a battle you will never win. I would rather have the opportunity to engage students as opposed to getting angry at ones who aren’t interested in the subject matter or to avoid getting “caught” spend 20 minute sessions in the bathroom so they don’t get yelled at. The fact of the matter is most people are not going to learn by simply sitting there listening anyway. They are going for their phones because they are genuinely BORED! In fact I would use this as a method of gauging myself in how interesting my presentation is. Think about it, your student playing on their phones are actually sending you a message and you don’t like it. This brings up a great opportunity for instructors to reflect on themselves and their methods of engagement. We use assessment methods on students all of the time and realistically students are assessing us as well. Often the simple things are missed in a classroom setting right from the beginning and I will give some examples from my experience. I recently attended a class at a local community college and was enthusiastic about taking this class which was around marketing for your business. Unfortunately I immediately knew that the class was going to be death by PowerPoint and debated pretending I had an emergency and leaving. I can read, so do yourself a favor and just email me the slides and I’ll spare myself thanks but of course I did not. I sat through the whole thing, click by click, bullet by bullet. I looked at my phone at least 30 times and even sent a few texts, read and responded to a few emails and maybe checked facebook. I may have even yawned out loud! Guess what? I was BORED! Just like your student who is looking at their cell phone that you are about to yell at. Teachers need to switch things up in the classroom every day. Some things that seem to work magnificently in connecting with your students: Greeting students ie handshake or fist bump for germaphobes before class starts and taking the time to let them know you are actually a human being too. Being prepared in advance, not opening a lesson for the first time in front of a class or fumbling through trying to download a PowerPoint etc. Start the class on time, don’t wait for stragglers. Some teachers take so long to get whatever it is they are going to muddle through started that it’s like watching the Walking Dead for the first 45 minutes waiting for the good part (so annoying). I guess if you aren’t a fan you won’t get the reference. Put the basics up on the board including an inspirational quote and give the early birds something to ponder. Let students know what to expect and what they are going to learn. The first 5 minutes should get the students energized about the topic not prepared for their nap. Objectives should be clearly defined, the students need to know what they are going to learn, why it’s important, how it will affect them in their future working career, safety precautions, tangible skills and always relate to industry expectations. Expand on topics and engage the students in a thought provoking way. Some simple suggestions to use in the classroom are asking questions like, Why do you think this is important? How do you think this would impact the customer, patient etc? What are some safety precautions and PPE that should be considered? The goal here is to get the students thinking and talking rather than just sitting in their chair pretending to be listening. Another simple engagement technique is to layout 4 thought provoking questions relevant to the topic and break the students into groups so their butt’s don’t fall asleep. Then have them spend 10 minutes or so discussing the answers to your questions. This gives them the ability to really talk about the subject matter and become familiar with it and guess what? If they want to use their phones to look things up, that’s OK! Now you can dig deeper for more elaboration and discussion. Games are a huge hit with students and there are apps for that! The point is it’s not the phones or iPads that are distracting them, they’re just human and doing what society does these days. You can classify generations but we all fall into the same category of human beings. Use these devices as tools to be engaging and I believe you will find that most people will forget they even have a phone. Don’t forget the hook, aka wrap up and just like the Walking Dead, give them a taste of what the next episode is about. Fist bumps are OK on the way out the door too! -Wendell Soucy

By entering into a clearly defined learning agreement with a student that spells out expectations and responsibilities it possble to help improve a student's perormance.

It is possible for a student to help support a case they are making for a topic by supporting it with some preliminary information from the web using their smart phones.

I find the students become highly engaged in a topic when given a related interactive assignment that is to be accomplished in a classroom cohort group of 2-4 students.

I find it interesting how some of my best students actually manage to perform well in their class while texting periodically during class. There is a fine line to walk between completely "banning" texting during class time and simply allowing it to occur here and there. The question then becomes, do the "benefits" of allowing students to text periodically during class outweigh the drawbacks of eliminating it completely?

I find it infringing on instructors' privacy to hand out personal phone numbers to students for many reasons. I would suggest using a service such as Viber and Whatsap to call and text students back and forth without giving out personal information. In today's world, students may not like the instructor for whatever reason and this can cause some issues with harassment and or badgering of the instructor in the future. Viber and Whatsap on the other hand do not give out personal information but yet can still be useful tools to keep in contact with students at all times.

I have found if you can relate information that students need to know with something that they are familiar with. I will also use other strategies to help remember information such as the digit location on a vehicle identification (VIN) number. The eight digit on a VIN number identifies the engine that is installed in the vehicle. Since the word engine and eight start with the letter "e" it can be a way to remember that digit.

A couple of weeks ago, one student told me that for the first time he felt comfortable speaking in an ESL class. I was pleased. This was a conversation class and of course one big part of such a class is to facilitate communication and empower the students to speak freely. But I also noticed that other students felt shortchanged because they were not able to see tangible, measurable results. And I think that is one of the inherent scenarios of a conversation/speech class as opposed to a conventional grammar class: the student has more difficulty measuring how much he or she has advanced. I understand there are strategies we can put in place to counterbalance this, but I just wanted to bring this up because sometimes we try too hard to look for ways to make the students feel they have learned something, and in so doing we might not implement strategies which would bring better results only in the long term. We want the students to leave our class with a sense of accomplishment, and that is quite alright. But we have to make sure we also give them other strengths they might not become aware of for quite some time.

It was encouraging to read in this course the line "Instructors should also connect lessons to students' backgrounds and develop activities in which students can use their native languages." For too long it has been one of the sacred commandments in ESL classrooms not to allow the students to use their native language at any time and under any circumstance in our well intentioned efforts to replicate at all costs a natural learning environment. So ingrained is this view that students have come to demand this practice and thus complain every time the instructor allows it or even makes some explanation in the students' native tongue. While using English is the whole point of having such a class, many times the student feels intimidated, helpless and incompetent by being forced to understand a concept or a structure in English, while seeing that a brief explanation in his native language would suffice, either by the instructor or a classmate. The course makes due emphasis on the level of comfort we should provide the students with, and allowing the students to engage in activities in which they could interact in their native languages will make them feel more at ease, more free to ask, more comfortable with their not understanding, and certainly will reassure them that their own background and culture can be in themselves useful tools to learn about other backgrounds and cultures.

I strongly believe that there is a big gap between people/students who were born in 1980s and those born in the 1990s. Although both of these groups are dubbed Generation Y, I believe, based on my own classroom observations that many of the students who were born in the late 90s do not really share too much in common with those born in the 80s. It may be my perception or personal age biases, but today's "youth" doesn't seem to want to do anything for themselves and lack respect for elders and authority figures. Maybe it is time to come up with "Generation Z".

It was somewhat of an epiphany for me to see that, with access to all of the internet, these younger students need to understand the relevance of what they're learning. How do I communicate the relevance of something when what we're discussing is very basic/foundational and the explanation involves concepts and techniques that they won't even understand yet?

Bit confused by some of the descriptions of boomers growing up distrusting authorities and being instructed to distrust banks and other institutions yet the is generation is also considered more optimistic.

As an Instructor there is something that I struggle with whenever I have a student with an accommodation. Lets use private testing as an example. If I am administering a test and then send a student out of the room. Am I not pointing out that this student is in some way different to the rest of the class? This has yet to be an actual problem but it is something that makes me uncomfortable. I feel as though I am outing that student.

How or what would be the best possible way of contributing to a student's success when encountering dyscalculia? Also, what could be offered to help students outside the classroom better understand what they learned in class?

I have been the ADA/504 coordinator on my campus for a little over a year now. In this time, I have seen many studnets overcome their challenges in life and be successful in their field of choice. On the other side of that, I have seen students who, in all reality, will have a difficult road at best in finding work and being successful in their career choice. We do all that we can to help them succeed in their programs, but at what point are we setting them up for failure when they get out into the workforce? We all want nothing more than to see them be happy and fullfilled in their careers. It's just difficult when know the struggles that they will encounter.

According to corporate policies, instructors are not supposed to be using social networking sites with students as suggested in this class' materials. Further this class should have reminded instructors that when using videos etc, they may be opening themselves up to copyright violations that must be considered.

Personally, given the demographic makeup of the classes that I am seeing today, I think CareerEd ignores generational theory completely by mandating that textbooks be used. In my class, the required text (required by CareerEd not chosen by me) is a waste of time and money and my students do not read the assignments. As discussed in this class, Millenials/Gen Yers, especially those in career-based institutions, want to see connections with real life experiences; they like to use technology; and have shorter attention spans requiring shorter pieces to read like articles or websites versus chapters in a textbook. Older students also like reading the articles. I think it is a shame that our students are required to purchase a book they will never use and that instructors are required to assign homework from those books.

how would you engage students from gen yin a clinical setting?

I think it's good idea, now a days it easy to access medical web site to look up medications.