I survived class today without coughing! I had cough drops on hand, but I didn't actually need any. Woo-double-hoo!
I was a little low energy, because I coughed so much last night that I didn't sleep wonderfully, but my students were low energy too. One apologized for falling asleep... his excuse, it was the Chinese New Year over the weekend.
So my questions.... How do you motivate students???? How do you get them excited???? Usually I'm doing backflips in the front of the room and sometimes I get a little acknowledgement. How do I make more of an impact?
They all look like they are drugged out. I lectured today, but I don't think I'll be doing that again on Mondays... I think that I will make Mondays a "work" day where we do active learning and Wednesdays a discussion day after they actually have some of the material in their heads.
I'm so torn at how to get things into their little heads. I know I can't put things there, and that they need to, but good grief, how do I get them excited? I hate seeing them fall asleep and drool on themselves. So unattractive!
2 comments:
Call them on it!
Humiliate one sleeping drooler (in a loving, funny way, of course) and I guarantee it won't happen again.
You put the work in to be there and teach. They need to put the hours in to learn. If you're talking about important stuff--to them, to the test, whatever--they should listen!
My first year physics class was the most unmotivated bunch of puddings I ever spent hours each week with. Normally we had a lecturer who carried on a quiet conversation with the overhead projector using 7 different colours of OHP pen to write down his every word. We dozed, chatted, read, snoozed, moaned and generally ignored him.
He went away for a few weeks and we had a stand in. She was one of the best lecuturers I ever had. She treated us like five year olds. She asked questions, she berated us, she walked up the aisle, took someone's newspaper away and quizzed them on the headlines, she explain why she liked the subject and what was interesting about the basic stuff we were doing, she tried to sell us T-shirts. Overall she was motivated, enthusiastic and dangerous to anyone not paying attention.
Of course some people thought the lecturer should leave them alone...
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