Education and class hours - Motivation management

The cruel hours of education

Many of us in the education business both as professors, and as students are unsure of how to manage lectures and assignment. We are unsure if are course should focus on the lecture itself, group work, participation and maybe even the size of work load to give out.

We as teachers have always met with the sleepy looks of young adults, the spacing out of individuals sitting next to the window, the doodling of many bored young'uns sitting up front, or the select few who resort to browsing the internet for memes or using their phones for solace.

As students we have had really interesting teachers but the hours of the class just weighed down on us. Sitting down and taking notes for 3 hours or sometimes the whole day is not the most attractive feature of attending school. What should we do.

For those starting out in the world of pedagogy, here are some of personal opinions in the world of business education in the international environment. I will focus on a few key areas of classroom and time management. This blog is focused on teachers and then I will create another one for students

They are as follows:

1. The Total Hours vs Session Hours

2. Humor and Interaction

3. The silent treatment

The Total Hours Vs. Session Hours of classes

When you are assigned a course, please understand that in some European Schools, the hours maybe half that of the American Schools (30 to 36 hours). Some schools enforce mid-term and final exams so the pedagogy may not be entirely flexible. 

If you have 15 hours of a class, you can choose to have 3 hours sessions where you can divide your course work into Lecture and Class Work. Students can take notes and then exercise their learning while you supervise them.

This depends on the class size too but it works favorably by allowing interaction between the students. Gossiping wakes up the mind. Allow them to get coffee and infer that this is part of the procedure. It may not work in certain classes such as Maths, Accounting or such, but you can look at creative ways to give them work on other forums. 

If you have 30 hours of classes, you can suggest Online Sessions. Online sessions are great to give students room to work on their own and free them from the anxiety of coming to the classroom. In today's age, it is an essential tool to manage your and your student's time for completing the course.

In order to use online sessions, some school offer their MOODLE services. If not, you can use Google Classrooms, Moodle Cloud, or my personal favorite, Canvas LMS.

Humor and Interaction

Students are ALWAYS tired. Morning class... they didn't sleep enough. Afternoon class... itis causing them to lose focus, Evening class... they are just focused on going home. Irrespective, some teachers can use humor to their advantage and create a ground for opening up. Sharing stories is essential and allows students to regain some energy. In my personal opinion, I am not that strict and constantly use humor to deal with tough assignment and quizzes. 

The feedback from the students is interesting as the humor leads to curiosity. That curios nature leads to secondary research on their part and they come back with information that could show their interest in the class is genuine. 

Please understand that not ALL students will open up. Some are shy, others may fear that they are not fluent in English. That is an ART you will have to learn by meeting different students. 

The Silent Treatment

Sometimes the class is dead silent as they could be exhausted from previous class lectures, exams, course work, etc. They might not be an a participative mood and for good reason too. The material could require them to focus on taking notes. It could also be the teaching style that requires active listening.

But this does lead to brain decay. Students can only pay attention for 30 minutes. It would be best to introduce questions, interactive games like Kazoo or Klaxoon to encourage participation, or even better would be focus group.

What I do with non Anglophone students is have an interaction session among themselves for the 2nd half of the course like a group assignment. It keeps the blood warm in their heads.

Well. that is all for now. Please comment your favorite teaching styles, or anything a teacher could do improve their sessions.