George,
Good plan and the results will be that your students will have a deeper understanding along with expanded skills that will enable them to use technology to promote their career development and success.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Within the cosmetology field, everything concerning hair is relevant. I have the students explain their everyday patterns and allow them to relate it to class experiences.
Shawnte,
Good way to illustrate to your students both application and relevancy. This is how you get them engaged and excited about the field they are preparing to enter.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Our course structure is geared towards relevancy. I teach at a culinary school, when I teach the history of certain ingredients, recipes or regions; I can see the glazed over look on the students faces. I explain to them that if they are able to discuss the history behind some of the dishes they are creating, they will be able to talk about that with their customers. The customer will then recognize the fact that you are knowledgeable on that topic and not just some chef, they are more inclined to want to come back and try some of your other dishes. So to even make the boring parts of the culinary courses seem more interesting, I make sure that I tie it in some how and make it relevant for the student.
Teaching science is usually pretty easy to make relevant to students' lives so I have them do a lot of hands-on learning that applies the knowledge to real-world experiences.
Russell,
Well said in terms of making your content relevant to your students. They need to see the connection between course content and career growth. Once they do their motivation levels increase as well as their ability to make application of the material.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I do the same thing. It helps greatly in motivating students, allowing them to make the connection from classroom to real world and reading them for applying learned material.
As any good teacher knows, all students do not learn in the same way. In addition, it is common for a class of students to be at a variety of levels in any particular subject. Teachers need to use different teaching methods in order to reach all students effectively. A variety of teaching strategies, knowledge of student levels, and an implementation of which strategies are best for particular students can help teachers to know which teaching methods will be most effective for their class.
The first step to choosing a teaching method is to assess the students. This assessment can be formal or informal. Formal assessments include standardized tests, tests from the textbook or curriculum being used, or teacher-created tests. These assessments can give you an idea of the previous instruction that the students have received as well as their academic level. The students in your class may have undergone various teaching methods and quality of instruction in previous years.
Every skill or objective an instructor introduces should be introduced and concluded with relativity and application of the skill in real-life experiences through sharing your own application in the field, showing in-field examples, and/or inviting guest speakers to share. All learners need to understand the relevancy and meaning of learning a specific skill or standard.
I model my LAB after actual situations I have dealt with and use actual problems I encountered as a service tech. for troubleshooting
I find that students learn better when I describe actual situations I have dealt with in the healthcare field. They seem to pay more attention and are more motivated to find a solution because now it's meaningful and applicable to them.
We always introduce a topic to students in the classroom setting and then we have the students practice this topic in the school lab. From there we can see which student or students need a different form of instruction or how we, instructors, need to modify the topic presentation. We have the instructors constantly ask for student feedback to see how the presentation of material could possibly altered or delivered differently or to see which students will need extra outside instruction "practice" time.
Adult learners always want to know why is his relevant. You can ask for their life experience or how they can add content through discussion and then guide the discussion to what is in the course content. I teach anatomy and physiology like courses so everyone wants to talk about their condition or their parents, children etc. I will often talk about what they may see in an office setting related to what we are covering.
Relevant Instruction in the healthcare industry (administrative), would be giving actual handouts to the students so they can learn how to read doctors' documentation. I give out real doctor statements (ensuring all HIPAA rules are followed by whiting out names, dates & places)so the students learn how to read them. This is something they will definitely need to know how to do in the actual doctor's office.
I take examples from my own experiences in the dental field and relate them to all of my classes. From using charting and accidentally writing down the wrong number and having an insurance claim kicked back to dealing with a cardiac arrest in the dental chair. This brings all of them into the realization that it is applicable to learn. They must be brought into the idea that they are going to be in charge of someone's health and well being in the dental chair.
Relevant instruction of knowledge, skills and abilities is expectations of college students. At the beginning of each class, I present the "big ideas" of what information we will be focusing/discussing and why are important to their careers. At the end of every class, I will have them turn a couple of pages in their books and point out the topics of discussion for our next class ... hopefully, they will read ahead of our next class :) and not want to be absent for any reason. Just another way to engage them.
Teaching to our students needs and expectations is one of many keys to engagement and retention but a very important one. Our students need to want to learn and most already do, the student may not communicate this fact well but we as career educators must find strategies and methods to discovery motivations of each student. One method I have used is class quiz creation where each student and depending on how many questions need to be quizzed each student may create more than one question, however, the class creates the quiz or quizzes through out the course. "what should you be quizzed on" or "what material do you think is important that we should know in this chapter/section" And lastly I do add in my own questions during this process so we all have a turn. This eliminates surprises and excuses from the students because the students created it.
I always save time in my Customer Service class for us to have discussions on the students' experiences with good/bad customer service and how customer service is relevant in their chosen career. This allows them to join in a discussion where there is no wrong answers even though there may be differences of opinions and approaches.
@gmeers
For many, the simple thought of taking a Math course in college is enough to bring on a sweat! Many will admit that much of their prior knowledge is difficult to build on, since they have used calculators for the majority of their lives.
In one of my classes, a mini project is required wherein they each present a powerpoint of 40 different ways they can see Math NOW in their daily lives. It helps the students see that math is relevant...and everywhere (in sports, medicine, cooking, building,etc etc).
When students"buy in" to the possibility that what they are learning is important, that in itself is motivation.
This process shows the students how to apply the application. It also creates a level of enthusiasm for the students to want to learn more about
