Non-performance of students is also stressful.
I have some students who work hard and go above and beyond to meet all the requirements of the course, while others only attempt to meet the very minium requirements, and still others do not even meet the minimum requirements of the class. This adds a lot of strees on not only the instructor, but it also adds stress to the students. Adult learners get easily frustrated when they are paying a lot of money for a class and doing all they can to succeed when some students are impedeing the productivity of the class because of their poor performance. This adds to my stress as an instructor in addition to the stress of the students, and the negative spiral continues. I have started implementing consequences for poor performance and bonuses for good performance. It seems to be working well.
It's too bad the poor performance of some impact other students, and it seems you are finding a solution. I try hard to motivate my students and even try to work with some one-on-one. If the extra measures don't work I refuse to worry further, knowing that I did everything in my power to help them. NO STRESS! If at some point they realize they are wasting their time and money and ask for help I'm glad to work with them once again. I think though I need to praise the hard workers more often than I do. Thanks for the reminder.
I agree that non-performance of students is also stresful. Some work so hard and others do just enough to "get by." Thios can create instructor stress to meet performance of student evals.
Debbie, So true. At the end of the day, we want our students to succeed. In some cases, our own success depends on theirs. Poor performance and low student motivation can put a damper on things.
Dr. Melissa Read
my class uses a point system that we call profesionalism point broke down into 5 areas and 5 points each. to some students it is very important to get 5 points in these and then there are the others wyo just dont seem to give a darn. this at first stressed me greatly because i putting the blame on myself, then i reolized that there are some adult learners that just will do the baer minimume and no more no matter how hard you try. once i came to that conclusion it seemed to remove that stress from me.
