Missing the forest for the trees..
Quite often my subject material can become very complex and foreign to most of my students.
My constant challenge is to tread very slowly into deeper waters, continually checking with each student that he/she is tracking with me. These slow steps are the only way I've found to ensure that most of my students will succeed in grasping these difficult concepts
Thoughts?
Hi Gregory,
By seeking feedback from students and "reading" their body language you can develop a clear understanding if they are with you or not. It is like a hunter that is tracking an animal. The hunter has to follow the trail by looking at the small signs. Instructors are the same way. Look for the small indicators of frustration or success. Each can be used to be more successful in the classroom.
Gary
I too experience this dilema.
I am forced to move slowly and in incremental steps. Yet, this new gen of students is very multimedia, very fast-paced. They want the answer to the complex question now without experiencing the steps along the journey.
On the other side of the coin, we have the older generation of students who want the whys and wherefores and dont, sometimes, understand that knowing WHY is not as germane to the topic at hand as knowing it DOES work.
I have used this exact analogy in classroom refocusing .... "you cant see the forest because you are sticking on individual trees. you ARE learning. you have BEEN doing ((insert objective)) for awhile now.".
I'm not sure there IS a right answer here. I personally, just try to make sure that I continue to act in a respectful way to my students... whether they seem to be out for a leisurely stroll through the forest... or are running for their live to get away from imagined wolves hiding in the foliage...
Hi Kevin,
You offer a number of different strategies and kinds of advice for instructors. Thanks for sharing.
Gary
