James Jackson

Tammy, I tend to agree with you but I do feel there is some interesting discussion here. Some of the feedback could be getting confused based on how different individuals interpret the words used or the implied intent. I can see some good discussion on a couple different fronts. (1) Any type of assessment can cause stress in students. What efforts are undertaken early in your classroom to lighten the stress level with respect to assessments? (2) If more rigor by means of added assessments is added to a class that is having discipline issues, what results can anyone share… >>>

Dillon, sounds like you have a great game plan. Another suggestion is to get into some role play and have students take turns playing the role of a supervisor in a work related scenario and have other students play the role of an employee. You can even take this as far as to have scripts for the students. The true value of this activity comes when you discuss the activity as a capstone exercise and have the students discuss their feelings about the different roles of management and employees. Students feel less threatened whey they discuss a scenario outside of… >>>

Dillon you have hit the nail square on the head with your post. Senior instructors have learned over the years that a majority of student discipline issues are not directed at the instructor or even at the institution. There are a number of great resources that come into play for those looking for more insight into the motivations of our youth and those attending Higher Education today. One of the first issues is to have an understanding that maturity and adult behavior is not related to age. You can just as likely have an adolescent 45 year old student as… >>>

Tammy, as I was reading through your post I could not help but think back to a book I read earlier this year, A Chance to Make History by Wendy Kopp. The book was written to discuss the issues surrounding helping those from low-income communities to be successful in their educational goals and more importantly in life. The book also brings forward another topic that I feel is critical in the role we play as educators and to the point you have brought forward in your post, servant leadership. As members of the faculty at our respective institutions we are… >>>

Thanks for sharing Richard. There are several concepts your story has to share. Obviously the focus for the discussion is how to work with self-doubt in your students. Another important concept here is setting the stage early and I like your comment about how reality took place as a result of the student not being successful on each exam. I think this is a teachable moment to help students realize that the term success is very relative. I would challenge that not getting a high score on an exam is a sign of not being successful. Since the student went… >>>