Kevin Duden

When it comes to clerical tasks, I tend to check emails first thing in the morning (and do other task), but also throughout the day during down time. I think if a person is going to only check emails at a certain time of the day, there ought to be a disclaimer alerting people to that fact. Some of my clerical tasks are higher priority because they involve checking students work and post-testing. One thing that I do that keeps things moving is having the students check with my TAs (also students) for questions before they contact me, as well… >>>

I like the idea of listing a general task then breaking it down into manageable parts. The same can be done with goals. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!  

Being prepared leads to confidence. I think I need to write a bio that I give to my new students to let them  know my background, education and experience. I think this would give them confidence they are in good hands.

I think it best to have a set of classroom norms and go through them every session at the beginning. This can be a quick or drawn-out review, as needed. They can also be posted on the wall and direct students to review them after they've signed in or updated their tracking sheets while the wait for others to catch up. You should get agreement from them that they are willing to follow the norms. For instance, if norm #2 is no cross-talk, and you have a student who is, you can simply ask them, "are you following norm #2? 

I also have the "center stage student" and typically just start ignoring them and calling on someone else or go to them when nobody else is speaking up knowing they usually have answer. What's worse are the ones wh crack jokes when I'm on a roll. It often throws me off  while lecturing.

The advice about moving to the area where the inattentive student is makes sense. I have used it repeatedly in my classes. The only issue is when you have a really stubborn or rebellious student, they go back to what they were doing when you move away. When it comes to cross-talk I address this at the beginning of every class session and we discuss how it is a form of disrespect. I then call them out when needed, but it's kind of rare. I work in a prison, and they know that they will receive a "corrective action" which… >>>

Find a way to get students to understand how the course will help them in the future. This one is really applicable to me because my courses are designed to help adult offenders avoid coming back to prison. Make the expectations very clear and stick to them. Hold them responsible for the exectations.

I like the concept of adults self-directing their learning. I think the challenge would be how to pull that off within the guidelines of what is required to be learned. In my situation, there are established things all students must learn or at least be exposed to. How do I allow some autonomy within those guidelines?

When going through this, I found the areas I tend to lean towards heavily but also found some that I could relate to part of, but nt the whole.

I have found that Roger's theory that adult learners need to immediately apply what they're leaning and also understand why they need to learn certain things to be absolutely true. I've experienced this in my on-the-job and periodic training. If I'm not told the "why" I will probably tune it out. If I don't see how I can use it in my job, I will likely tune it out.