One of the things I would want to consider in
in this instructional material for new instructors is
more of a marketing strategy
when it comes to
the class work itself.
What we're doing as instructors is that we're selling ideas and we're selling concepts, so for us to do this we need to
get our students involved. We need to have them feel as though they actually need this material.
If we don't present the material in a way in which they feel they have a buy in, and if we don't present the material
that they want to learn it, they're never going to retain it, it's not going to mean anything to them,
and they're going to feel like they've wasted their time and in effect you'll feel like you're wasting
your time. So when we look at our target audience, our students themselves
We need to understand where they're coming from and we need to know how to address
their background, their demographics, their mindset, when we're presenting this material and that's a way to get them more involved.
and we want them to sit there and go "yeah my instructor makes a very good point, I would really like to learn this because I can see in the
future how it may be valuable to me and my future career. See one of the problems I had I
the first curriculum that I was involved in was mechanical engineering
and for me I was always a hands on person
when I went to school, it was for mechanical engineering, it was all theoretical and I couldn't relate to it. I still remember it, my one professor
was talking about "well this is a spring constant and this is a damper and it's going over an irregular surface" and I couldn't relate
to that, I actually dropped out of the class and I failed it and the 3rd time I took it I finally
a light bulb clicked in my head and I said "isn't that the same as a mount shock rear suspension on a dirt bike"
and he's like "yeah that's exactly what it is" and I'm like 'why didn't you tell me this?'
Real world practical application I could relate to, I had a dirt bike sitting in my garage
and I'm like "if you would have told me it's the same thing as the rear suspension on my motorcycle,
I would have been able to relate to this material", but instead they left it
theoretical, and I was clueless, I didn't know what he was talking about, I couldn't relate it to something I dealt with on a daily basis.
so when you're able to take a hindrance and an experience like that, and you know you don't want to repeat that with your own
students, you have to be able to bring in those real world practical applications
applications of the information that you're covering and then they can relate to it and
That light bulb will come on a whole lot quicker.
So if I were building a class, a couple of things I would include
I would include, say management theory, what business management has to teach us about motivation.
One of my precepts here is the hardest thing I have to do is have to motivate my students
There's been tremendous work done in the field of management for motivation I would have a
some opportunities to observe classes
But if that's not possible, I would have a new adjunct, encourage them to spend as much time talking to a veteran teacher as possible
because if you just sit and talk and you learn from the experiences that they have
they can tell you, kind of where the pitfalls are they can tell you that, that veteran teacher can tell you things
things that you may have never considered, and it's a shame to waste all of that knowledge and experience.
but also I think training is on-going
I believe in continual training
So I think a nice thing to do, for adjunct's in particular are like lunch and learns.
So for adjuncts, getting us together if possible to do the lunch and learn
or even putting them on line building a video repository of some of the lectures, you know this is how we handle the disciplinary problem
and let us go back and watch them at our our leisure, let us take the training
when we can do it. One of the greatest advices though that can be given to a new adjunct is to leverage the experience
have leverage if you're a leader and industry if you work in an office, if you're manager in your day job
leverage that experience figure out how best to use that experience
in the classroom.
I would include first of all clear focus on the procedures the policies and my expectations. I would appear confident going in.
you don't want the students to see that you're afraid
the worst thing you could do is say "this is my first time" oh you can't announce that or "I'm new at this" they don't want to hear that
because they will take it back to judge it, so just a clear focus of the procedures, policies and the expectations.