Professionalism with students / soft skills
My students can learn theory when they apply themselves. It seems to be the soft skills that they have challenges with. How to communicate and behave appropriate is where they fall short
Teaching professionalism is sometimes the hardest part of our job. A lot of my past students didn't have positive role models in their lives but they are up to the challenge of learning to communicate effectively. Model the behavior consistently and most will catch on.
I give the students some information then have hands on activites to reenforce the lesson.
when you say hands on activities, would you elaborate of what types of activities? I am teaching adults, and some of my younger adults don't want to take the time to study. I have given activities to be done in class, but I feel I am loosing their interest completely
Unfortunately, professionalism or soft skills are lost sight of during the academic protions of a course. Depending on what the subject area is, the may not be as many opportunities for the teaching of soft skills. However, soft skills are one of the most important things we do. In a "career" college setting, regardless of study area, successful graduates are going to need to interact well with others, be they coworkers or customers. As educators, we are now given the job of not only attempting to instill a "work ethic" in our students, but to teach common courtesy and simple politeness. Many young adults simply do not possess the drive to work for their education. If you have highly motivated adult learners, the teaching is a breeze. They are self motivated and can see the end goal of gaining a better job or career through education. On the other hand, the reality is that many of the students we have possess little or no desire to succeed. They "live" in the "moment", only concerning themselves with their perceived need at the time. OK, enough about the negatives. Here's what I've found to be successful. If you have a program that has lab activites, make sure that you only spend enough time in the classroom portion of the class to get the key concepts across. Even if your class is purely academic, don't drone on for hours lecturing to students. Presentations should be kept short and to the point. If you have powerpoint presentations provided by others, you should actively edit them for content that is incorrect or simply does not apply. Another key is to make your class as interactive as possible, to increase student engagement. Be sure to take a break from traditional lecture if possible, play a game like Jeopardy, have students teach others, or have small study groups or teams in the classroom. Finally, to stress the need for professionalism and customer service have guest speakers (employers) come in and give students insight into the real world and what is required of them.
*In the past, I have used alpabet puzzle pieces (foam). I break the class into even teams of 3 or 4; objective is to spell as many drug names in a set time frame. Three out of four tries wins. Spelling has to be complete and correct to get credit. All students enjoyed do this.
*Jepordy; I have a set of four buzzers (all different sounds) and when the team knows the answer they hit the buzzer. Again, all students of all ages got involved and set their own rules for the competion.
*Mayo Stand drapping competion: who can put on the mayostand cover the quickest without contaimination. All students compete with the first winner until the end. May be the first winner, or they may have been beaten out by another.
*Each student takes a paragraph in the chapter and lectures on it (3-5 minutes).
