Alan-Michael Bresch

This section has taught me that students need to learn more than just the course content. They need to also acquire real world skills that empower them to become successful professionals. This can be done by including elements in the coursework (assignments, tests, quizzes) that force the students to contemplate themselves and develop critical thinking, accountability, and self-discipline.

Possessing a genuine enthusiasm for a subject is infectious. Do not try and demonstrate the course material through humilating presentation, but rather, know your students and bring the material to them in a complelling and electrifying way. Make it relevant, know you students and what they desire then address their interest during lecture. Its all about engagement with the student body, rather than being insecure and using your abilities to control the flow of the classroom.

The midterm slump is a very real problem. There are strategies to check the pulse of the class and refocus them on the materials at hand. Determine where students are at, show them how far they have come, and shake up the lecture style to assist students in remembering their original enthusiasm for the class.

This section really underscores why it is important to entertain the students. Not as a priority, but as a supplment to dense or otherwise boring material. Give it some passion, life, humor, and that will go a long way to encouraging students to learn with vigor.

Self awareness and awareness of the other selves in the class. Everyone has different reactions to adversity and difficulty, rising frustrations that must be dealt with in one way or another. Being self aware and showing students, by example, how to deal with frustration in a real world environment seems to be a critical part of being an instructor. Everyone is afraid of failure, even the instructor. So, show the students that despite this fear success is attainable and, even better, worth attaining.

Preparation is essential to improving your ability to clearly deliver. Employ multiple learning strategies so that individuals can learn based on their preference. Break up the material with interactive and communal activities that foster productive exchange between students. Learning from one another is a critical aspect of many fields and beginning that collaboration in the classroom will help significantly long-term.  

Developing a positive student outlook on their education is essential and it begins with you caring about the students and their identity. Making an effort to learn their names and establishing a system to continue to remember them allows you more freedom to focus on teaching. A connected student is more likely to have a positive response to the material and will feel understood and welcomed in the class.

Additional steps must be taken for you to meet and even exceed the expectations placed on an instructor role. Notepad/device to record student needs, making sure you interact with the students in a way that reassures them you are an approachable person, learning their names, and putting in the extra effort to really create an inviting and safe learning environment.

Maintaining priority in making a professional connection with the other students in a way that conveys respect, but instills a sense of credibility. Conduct yourself in a way that emulates the professional world outside the classroom. By serving as a professional model you teach not only the material but also how the students must conduct themselves post-graduation. 

Also, stay humble. Show the students how they can be their smartest self not how you can be the smartest in the room. Key point here and very well delivered by the Harvard professor.