Carlos Leal

Carlos Leal

About me

Activity

The computer courses I teach propose certain objectives that are important and reasonable; nevertheless, sometimes I feel that because emerging trends and new technologies, I add extra information that does not necessarily show up on the textbook, nor will it be part of a standardized certifications exam. Students welcome this information yet many times they realize that there is an overwhelming amount of new things they have to keep up with... How can I go about having the students learn certain material for an exam, and certain material to become familiar with for Real world objectives?
Discussion Comment
I have to admit I am a relatively young instructor (22) and usually my students never really gave this matter importance, nor had realized their instructor was half their age. In the last course I taught, the students figured out my age and it was an ackward situation... For some reason, I had the impression they were not taking me as seriously as in the first day of class. Can you provide me some advice to counter this situation?
Discussion Comment
I have been using a particular text book for quite some time. Despite being a relatively complete book, I feel it is not very friendly for the particular course I'm teaching. Are there any particular suggestions or guidelines that I can generally follow before I adopt a new textbook? I fear that I may not have time between the end and beginning of each course to review the entire material, nor would I like to compromise the school I work for. What should I do?
One of the problems I face often is caused by the attitude of many unhappy career changers. How can I serve as a motivator for people that have such a challenging situation?
Discussion Comment

Dr. Meers, In numerous courses I have taught, I've restrained myself from using the element of surprise because of fear that it could backfire and completely cause the wrong effect. As a computer support instructor, I would find it fitting that computer technicians in training would benefit from ocassionally being surprised. For instance, one time I planned a drill that would have a student perplexed, encountering a computer that is malfunctioning after it was working perfectly fine before the coffee break. I've done this drill a few times with mixed success. One time, the students were able to succesfully fix… >>>

Sometimes I feel students generally feel very well about the course; nevertheless, there are ocassions where any given class has interesting lessons, and some that are not as appealing. In the past I have certain students that despite having this positive attitude of enjoying the course, ask me what objective will be covered in the next meeting... I would say 4 out of 5 times the student takes the topic into consideration and may decide not to show up for the next meeting (especially if the current class session maybe has been exhausting.) Often I may believe this is because… >>>

End of Content

End of Content