Get Your Students Hired
Debra, I'm sure your students appreciate the flow of your classes and find themselves successful because of them.
Michele Deck
Teresa, I'm impressed you are attuned to the social and need for belongIng that each student has. It sounds like you have great strategies in your classes.
Michele Deck
I would like to be a learner in my own class to feel important, valued, and respected. It is essential that the student feels that his/her time is valued and that each question/comment is critical to meeting course objectives. The student should feel respected in order to be confident enough to raise his/her hand to answer and/or ask questions. If intimidated or disrespected, they will close down and their time will be wasted.
Why would I want to be a learner in my class? I always do at least two activities during my class, I limit my lectures to 20 mins. or less and I try to make med term interesting.
I encourage my students to share how they have remembered a medical term. I start off by giving an example/funny story of my own way of remembering a few terms. I believe this gives the students a connection to each other, as well as the medical term.
Stephanie, it is true that adjusting your classes and how you teach them should be directed by the student need in each class. Those needs can be very different.
Michele Deck
I am always learning in my classroom. Sometimes a particular activity will be great one time and then you try it again with a different set of students and the activity did not go as well. I am always learning about my students, and my class room evolves every 6 weeks and I need to adjust with my students and their learning styles.
Kim, you have said the major point here, "my students are involved.". That is the key as you have seen to their success in learning and remembering.
Michele Deck
I would like to be a learner in my own class because of the following reasons...I lecture in a manner which is infectious to my students. When using a power point, I avoid just "reading" the information. I explain it, I break it down and use examples from real life situations so my students are able to make a connection. Also, I use the hands-on technique to make an even stronger connection between an idea and just words. The more I am involved in my lessons, the more my students are able to retain the information.
I want to be a learner in my class as well as my students, so I know what I just lectured on was thought through by the class. During a terminology class I give a lecture for 20 to 30 minutes then I try to come up with a way that the students need to relay to me that they have some knowledge of what I just lectured on.
I'll ask the class to define a prefix and give me example. If the same students aswer all the time then I will try a different approach to all the other students, wheter a seek a word puzzle or crossword puzzle. I want the student to let me know that they understood the chapter.
In medical terminology I found you need to be very creative.
I believe that it can be a valuable learning tool for our students to see that their instructors are human and make mistakes too. I believe how we handle those mistakes will stay with them. I think it shows them that is okay to own up to making mistake and learn how to problem solve through them.
Danielle, getting students to aplly content and think critically is one of an instructor's most important jobs.
Michele Deck
I take information that I have learned in the field and in everyday life and show them how to apply in class so that they get a better idea on how to adjust to what they will encounter. This is why I would want to be in my class.
Terry, I agree that adding fun and activity to a subject that is dry like medical terminology.
Michele Deck
I try to make repetitive learning fun. I believe that the nature of med. term. composes of mixing educating with fun.
Kamice, I like your approech, which is practical and will work with a variety of students.
Michele Deck
I consider myself a life long learner. Teaching this suject is new to me. I use medical terminology on a daily basis but I am always learning new terms. I am approaching this new class with a clean fresh attitude, asking myself, "how would I learn this if I was the student?" I am learning to use activities to enforce the material in smaller sections and take more breaks to allow the brain to rest.
Jamie, keep on trying new methods when you have the chance. This will give you a menu of what you can use with future classes.
Michele Deck