Kevin Williams

Storytelling comes with time and experience.  I've been teaching for well over 20 years.  I think you have to find where you can weave stories into your curriculum rather than forcing them in.  Creating stories is challenging at best, try to let them come naturally (organically some might say) or based on experiences.  

I do use quite a bit of humor in my storytelling, and perhaps need to be more careful and thoughtful with how I use it, especially with the diverse background of students that I have.  

I really like that storytelling can be done at any time and for such a variety of concepts.  I think it surprises students that so many different ideas can be simplified to things that they already know through stories and other ideas. 

Storytelling allows me to use a wide variety of experiences and examples to relate to my students from experiences that I have had.  Even if many of them have not had these same experiences, most can relate to them.  I am able to talk about more complex concepts in real-world ways, having had far more years to experience things than almost all of my students.  Humorous stories are particularly fun to tell and are intriguing to them, mostly because I think they want to know more about us as teachers and who we really are.  

All my classes are different depending on subject matter so require different approaches. Regardless though, I must set clear expectations of the students and clearly communicate with them. 

Everyone deals with stress in different ways.  There is no right or wrong way to decrease your stress.  It can vary from person to person and from one situation to the next.  It's best to have multiple techniques in your bag in case one is not effective for a given scenario.  

Mindfulness is a constant practice that requires active and intentional energy but the positive effects can be great.  

It is a positive environment for all students to experience some degree of failure in the classroom, as long as it is a supportive and uplifting space.  They need to know that it is okay to not always be correct and that mistakes occur.  

I really like the idea of stopping my students and having them do some deep breathing exercises prior to quizzes to try to relax them.  They are usually so focused on getting the quiz and spilling all of the information out at once, but I think it will do them good to stop and breath for a moment or two first and hopefully relax.  We will see how it goes!

Motivating students is complex and highly dependent on the individual and the situation.  It is difficult to individualize all subject matter to properly motivate an entire class of students, but with persoal experience in the field they intend to work in, I can hope to reach most of them and give them insight that is helpful.