Get Your Students Hired
Sherry,
Relevancy and application are two important parts of the teaching/learning process. So the more we can do both the more valuable the course content becomes.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
you need expections because the students need to know what they need to do to be good at what they are trying to do
Most adult learners need to know why something matters, just providing instruction is not sufficient. They benefit from knowing how a specific task will effect them once out in practice, additionally the more instructors can draw upon previous knowledge and experience they are able to draw connections which usually put them as ease.
I think a lot of what the students like to see and hear as to what is "relevant" is not only based on the course content, but also the instructors experiences that they bring to the table.
IDA,
The greater connection between the classroom/lab and the workplace the better. This increases the value of the content that is being offered and increases their motivation because they see why certain content is being taught.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Chad,
You are on the right track with your assignments and applications. I teach a course like this for our seniors. They have to take and pass my course in order to get their state certification. Needless to say most of them do not value what I have to offer. I take it as a personal challenge to get them engaged and help them to see the value of my content. It is tough at times but I get great reward out of hearing them say that I shared with them content that they actually can use.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I believe it is important to relate the classroom work to how it effects the study progress in the work place
As an instructor of a "core course", mathematics, it is not easy to make content relevant to everyone, since students come from a varietyf majors. Since a portfolio or roject is required in the syllabus we are given, I give students a choice of problems from eac chapter to write up and explain. These are always applications or concept extentions, so hopefully they can fid something to relate to in their choices. I also require a final paper including two examples in their field that involve math.
LAWRENCE,
I am sure sharing these pictures and giving examples really captures the attention of your students. I know I would be interested and I'm not in the culinary arts field. Good way to engage students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
In teaching Culinary Arts I find it helpful to teach as much as I can about the coutry and/or culter we are about to cover. As a world traveler I have amasses quite a photo album, so showing slides of various food prep or markets get everyoune involved early on in the teaching process.
Juanita,
Thank you for sharing the enthusiasm your students had for chart review. They realized the value that was going to come from them reviewing the charts and then discussing what was going on with the patient. This is a great application strategy for students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I teach in the clinical setting. The chart review has become one of the students favorites. We map out how diagnosis interrelate, which symptoms can indicate more than one diagnosis and how the treatment was determined. In my last clinical setting students were lined up at the door waiting for the chart review.
I feel that it is very important that you make instruction relevant for the student to understand
Wanda,
Students really perk up when you share a story with them. By telling them a story you are increasing the value of the course content because you are telling them how you used the same content when you were in the field.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Helen,
You make a good point about the use of pretesting and how it not only yields results in terms of the assessment but is also being used as a learning instrument. Thank you for sharing how this activity is a valuable learning tool. This information is going to be of much help to other instructors.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Helen,
You are going to like the results you get from this I am sure. Also you are going to be surprised at the responses you get to how they have used the information in their personal lives. This is a fun activity that everyone is going to enjoy.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
A way to make content relevent is to tell a story of your own experience. We use this method frequently with our dental hygiene students. This makes the lecture interesting, personal, and applies the content to their future career.
I started doing a rudimentary pre-quiz because I found that more and more students did not know how to answer questions because they didn't know the meaning of a word in the question such as 'adjacent' or 'predisposed'. We are now providing definitions in parenthesis behind some of these words on the test. Providing the definitions on tests has been useful as I don't have to take class time to try to educate them in an area other than the technical information. That way they don't answer incorrectly because they don't understand what the question is trying to ask.
This gives me an idea. I think I will try to have students go home and think about what they learned that day and then come back with a way in which they used that knowledge in their own life. It won't have to be earth shattering and maybe I will try to build a reward into it--if they are able to do it, they get a point. 10 points = a prize-somthing like that.
Albert,
Thank you for sharing this example of how you adjusted your curriculum to engage your students. This change is already being observed by the expression on the faces of your students. I am sure it is a lot more fun to teach this motivated group of students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.