First I must be prepared, knowledgeable and professional for every meeting. I must come in
with the knowledge to teach a lesson that I'm getting ready to teach, I have to put in the work.
you know I have to be I have to be prepared, I have to be ready to go, you know hen the light goes green I have to be ready.
The second thing I must do is I must make learning personal for each student. The first thing I do is I have an introduction
I have my students introduce themselves and have them tell me what their
dreams are or why they're in school, why did you decide to come to school?
and it helps them to think about what is that light at the end of the tunnel, what is that goal that they have, a lot of them are nursing
students, well good, you must be caring and compassionate, keep that in mind as we go through this class because your end goal
will help you justify the sacrifice to get there.
so I must make learning personal for each of them
and the last thing I must do is, I must lead by by example, I can't ask them to do something I won't first do myself.
That's why I'll sit down and I'll take their exams, I'll take their homework assignments I'll
do all the work that I ask of them first, because I can't ask them to do it if I haven't done it.
One is communicate, communicate, communicate, encourage and consistency, those are my top three.
I would have assumed the top three must do's in order to make sure that my students
learn the material and that they actually understand and comprehend it is that
my must do's, I have to know who my students are
with a diverse student body ranging from the ages of 17 to 65, 68, one of the first things I do is I have a introduction
question in my discussion area of my course, in this I like to have the students share their ages, where they're located at
what they're doing, if they're a professional, if they've got a job, if they have a family
and then through this introduction class I actually take notes.
and I keep that on hand, any time I need to address individual students or the class.
as a whole. I get to see the demographics of my student body.
and because there are different learning characteristics and different backgrounds in some cases the basics and class
some of my students haven't had in thirty years so it's really difficult to in some of these more complex
student bodies to, come up with something that's going to work for all of them
so that's one of the cases where I try to implement a basic genetic overall presentation that should address everyone
but then in some of the commentary, and especially in the discussion questions and the homework assignments that are used to
drive this material home, it's able to reach into some of their different
backgrounds and some are different experiences, the discussion questions are really important to me to get student interaction
some of my students are in the professions themselves and they've got backgrounds
where they can share their experiences and it helps their younger classmates and some of the other classmates
that aren't in this industry that the textbook is covering their hands on material their hands on experience
and stories, really drives home that this material is important and it is viable
I've got to find a way to not be confrontational, but to expose the way the way it probably really is and do that in a neutral light
The whole goal is to make sure that they learn, and to learn the material and that they can not be prejudice
when it comes to the material itself, and they need to be able to understand the facts as they're brought to their attention and be able to
use it to their advantage for whatever their purpose is.