Hi Daniel,
You are right. I love graduate guest speakers they add the most flavor to any course than any other guest speaker because they have sat where the students are sitting.
Patricia Scales
Hi Connie,
Students certainly need to know how the course is going to benefit them in order to understand course relevancy. When students become interested in the course you gain buy in from the students.
Patricia Scales
I am always speaking to my students about the importance of using Spanish in their professional settings. For the medical assistants I give them stories of people that have come in to the ER and have not spoken English. Since I am the only person in the ER that speaks Spanish, I can get their vitals, and other important information. I show business people the importance of knowing Spanish because of product marketing. I use Chevrolet's mistake of trying to promote the Chevy Nova, in Latin American countries. Nova in Spanish means no go. So the designers and engineers and marketing personnel who have saved a lot of time and money had they known what they were saying.
It is like a puzzle, without the right pieces you can not finish the puzzle. Without the right tools, the job may not get finished or will take longer to complete. Our job is to show the students the tools they may need in order to complete the task at hand.
One can show relevancy of course content and how the material can be useful in the student's career. They must have personal buy in for the course, how they can use the material and course content personally in their career. Providing examples and drawing a clear picture will help in this situation.
Thanks,
As a business administration facilitator I use articles from newspapers and internet related to business for the students to analyze in the classroom and tell me how the article relate to the class.
Hi Wendy,
Absolutely! Nicely stated! We need to equip our students with the tools that they need to be successful in their careers.
Patricia Scales
The way that I approach this is by first, looking at the background of my students and finding out what their majors/careers are. I can explain all day why my field is important, but I find that application to either real-life situations and/or a direct connection to their majors/careers tends to be a better method for helping to understand why this course and the material that will be presented is important.
At one time I to was a student of this class. I like to talk to them about the places it has taken me and the lifestyle it has afforded me to live. when I talk to them about the many country's I have been to and the many kinds of work I have done I can see a spark in there eyes about there future in the field. It makes my job worth it.
I routinely use myself as an example to illustrate how ineffective I was prior to getting the education in comparison to how effective I became after getting the education. Education empowers your ability to contribute to your team’s effort. Education allows you to view the problem set from multiple angles and develop multiple courses of action. Education allows you to participate in complex problem solving sessions where success depends on understanding the “Whole†problem, not just one pieces of it. I provide specific examples where I contributed very little due to not understanding the whole situation, a direct reflection on my lack of education in the subject matter. I also provide specific examples where I contributed a lot after in very similar situation, a direct reflection on having gained an education in the subject matter.
Hi Thomas,
Students want to and need to know how the course is going to help them in their chosen field of study. When students feel they understand how useful the course is going to be, they buy into the course, thus understanding the relevancy of the course.
Patricia Scales
I try to make everything relevant for the work place. Being a manufacturing trade school, we always try to hand out fabricated metal parts as examples of manufacturing process. Holding in item in hand brings realism to the concept.
Kurt
One way to show students the relevancy of a course is to use examples of how the course is related to their career goals in a real world, practical way by. I could do this by presenting them with attention grabbing content.
I'm a brand new instructor, with my first class starting tomorrow (Monday) night. I am fortunate that my course is a four week course for future CNAs. My course is all inclusive. The material covered in my course teaches the students how to be a CNA in the work world and teaches them the knowledge and abilities to complete the skills needed to take and pass the State Boards to earn their certification. Much of our time will be spent learning and perfecting the skills they will perform on a day to day basis at their new jobs. As long as I can present the material in a manner that keeps the students motivated to learn, the relevancy of the course shouldn't be hard to convey.
Whatever the topic is (especially the ones that the students don't see the relevance of the topic), I like to show the practical application of the content either through personal illustrations from my business experience, through examples of leading companies that they would recognize or even putting them into a scenario such as, "You are six months into your new position and your boss comes to you and asks... Wouldn't you like to be able to rise to the challenge and make a great impression?"
Hi Rick,
When students understand how the course is going to benefit them either personally/professionally, they understand the relevancy of the course.
Patricia Scales
Give concrete examples of how the content is used in the industry. This can be done both verbally and by showing them physical samples of the concepts in use.
By relating the course topics to real life experiences- showing them what they will be learning will be relevant to their career choice.
I have the advantage of being a professional in the field for which I am teaching classes, so I have found that sharing anecdotal examples of real-life work situations helps my students not only understand the relevancy of the course content, but also helps them feel more confident going out into that work world. By sharing challenges I've had in particular graphic design projects, client relationship issues, and time and budget mishaps as well as how I've resolved them, I'm helping them see the process in problem solving and apply their design skills to real situations.
I use alternative teaching styles. I use video, handout,internet pictures,etc.
By doing all of this I can show students the knowledge they are learning here can and will be utilized everyday of their careers.
