Barry Westling

Stan, Good, and if we can get them to be good at critical thinking, we will have given them a tool that will help them their entire work career, and even in their personal life. Barry Westling

Bernadette, We want to be ready, organized, and prepared from the get go. We can be role models for readiness that students may want to pick up and emulate for their own level of professionalism. One thing for sure, when it's absent, students will have no model to refer to. Barry Westling

Stan, Real world experiences can really add to the students understanding of course content. Field trips are terrific ways to reinforce facts in a way that's memorable, meaningful, and ultimately useful to the graduate in the work setting. Barry Westling

Stan, Right. When we focus on students, we are saying in effect "your education is more important than my curricular plans". We need to be flexible and adaptive to individual student needs Barry Westling

lisa, I like to discuss performance eraly on, and frequently after that. There needs to be time for correction, and for correction to have an effect on grades. Adult learners want and expect status updates as soon as realistically possible so as to not feel they've fallen into a deep hole with no chance to climb out before the current session ends. How frustrating that would be. Barry Westling

Carl, Right. Pretests really assist the instructor decide where the emphasis needs to be, or where more (or less) time can be spent on a given topic based on the overall performance of the class. Barry Westling

lisa, Questions, discussions, and active ingagement (writing ideas on flip charts, white board, leading a discussion) are examples of ways to reingage distracted students. Sometimes, just simple tasks can reinvigorate students, such as circulating about the room, teach for 10-minutes, ask questions for 5-minutes. This last suggestion puts students on notice they're likely to be called on and therefore, need to pay attention in order to respond appropriately. Barry Westling

lisa, Right, variety helps keep attention. We want to avoid "busy work" that while may be related to the topic, contributes little to advance learning. Barry Westling

Lisa, To be truely successful, student really have to be able to think on their own, well beyond facts and skills that introduce them to their career choice. If we can accomplish that, we will have done our students well. Barry Westling

lisa, Students are perceptive and can tell almost immediately how much preparation their instructor has created. When see a well organized class, materials and resources readied, and their instructor waiting for them and the class to start beforehand, that sends a strong message, and possibly may serve as a role model for students be prepared in like fashion. Barry Westling