Do students make an instructor?
Does the attitude and quality of the students which you are teaching form you into the instructor you are today?
Atmosphere and spirit of students, helps when theyre positive and wanting to learn and receive what youre teaching or showing them. Hard students to teach also strengthen your abilities to deal better on your toes though. Preparation is big key.
I believe it does, it makes to get more xeperience, and how to deal in the feuture. Basically its a polishing yourself.
Does the attitude and quality of the students which you are teaching form you into the instructor you are today?
Yes they do. We need to respond to the needs of our audience and their level of interest and enthusiasm reflects back on us. While it is not the only force present in the room, it does have an impact. I find myself "bouncing off" my students and what they do. This is especially evident when you teach two sections of the same course in the same shcool at different times. You can really see the similarities and the differences in the groups. All different groups have different dynamics and the teacher needs to be aware of this to effectively interact with students to maintain their level of enthusiasm.
Yes it does because a class is made up of so many students, with there own personalities and ways of wanting to deal with things. You have to learn to indentify with each students own capabilitys and preferances and learning to deal with this varity and still maintain control.
Reply to James Burke's post: The quilty of the students in the class change the dynamics of the class room. when i started teaching I felt that I was teaching 80% of the class. Five years later I feel like I only teach 50% of the class. When I have a class full of students that want to learn it make teaching fun and the students learn at the same time. Those classes that I only have half the class involved with lecture it's so hard to teach because I have to teach those that want to learn but keep the others on point and make sure they do not disrupt lecture or waste class time.
With the diversity of students in todays clasroom many skills are needed to be developed to keep the classroom "ALIVE". These skills take time to obtain for use during those classes that require an instructor to alter his approch to become most effective. Once learned they make teaching fun in the use of those skills and watching positive results obtained.
Very interesting discussion! Great question Mark!
I was attending a meeting of engineering faculty, not at my own University, but rather at my alma mater on invitation from the Dean. More than one of them complained about the bivariate distribution of the students (engineering-speak for two types of students forming a double-hump bell curve of grades). In particular, the complaint was that the lower grades group waltzes into class and says "stop everything and catch me up."
I sense this may be an underlying influencer in some of the comments, and although I realize it's only a part of the puzzle, I will give my technique for dealing with this - at the risk of boring you all by stating things you already know...
I tell students "life happens" - and when you have events or circumstances or things you don't grasp as quickly as others who may have expericend it before - it always seems to create more work for you, never less. For this reason, I've structured this class so that everyone has a chance to get back on board and catch-up if they are willing to put in that extra work - and then I point them to specific resources. Also, about midway through every term, I have one-on-one discussions with every student pointing to specific resources for them, and explaining the consequences of not catching-up (the top-grade bell curve students love this "keep up the good work" conversations as well!).
In this way, I feel like I'm treating students like adults, and I'm also clearly explaining consequences (and documenting that conversation as well) and how to mitigate those consequences.
