I do not wish to be presumptuous, as I do not teach students actively, I teach teachers how to teach! I do have a certification as a teacher trainer, and I use some out-of-the-box methodology to help teachers and schools (and school systems) to cope with (very) unruly/risky behavior students in K-12. As you all know, or should, if you do not have the individuals’ attention from the first moment you open your mouth, you cannot communicate, thus you cannot teach. Moreover, the real goal of a teacher should be to “intrinsically motivate” each student, thus they will begin to “teach themselves through natural curiosity” and the organic in-born need to please.
The first issue with Mr. Faizes question is that a good percentage of any class will be full of “introverted” students; not active participators verbally. Learn to recognize them the first day, and adjust questions to them that encourage participation. Give your students the Myers-Briggs personality test (or similar instrument), and tell them that if the class (as a team) seriously applies themselves to assure the best results, a reward will follow. Stress that there are no wrong answers or time limit, and to be completely truthful to receive the most accurate results. The reward system is usually something like getting out of class 5 minutes early (last class of the day) or bring in fruit and give everyone some; be creative! (Seriously, tie the class reward system to team participation from the start and they will begin to self-monitor and ‘punish’ non-participation and bad behaviors (verbally only) each other as a team unit.)
If anyone is interested in other ideas, please read the response to Mr. Faize’s post I submitted.
Edward J. Files, AAS, AGS, BSM, MBA (SAPM, CTT, CGPW)
Doctorial Student, Education, Org Development
I would certainly be interested in reading their answers as I also work with student teachers.
I read with interest your suggestion for participation and how you would pull in intrverted students. Do you think this could be applied to middle school children especially where you could use peer pressure/team work to get everyone on board and in line.
My student teacher is writing a thesis on "Introverted learners in the English language classroom." Making trainees study the problems in questiion can widen their horizons as well as help them understand themselves a little better.
I am sorry I have not responded earlier but I am working on my Dissertation study and time simply passed to quickly. To all three of you wonderful teachers I would say; knowledge is power, demonstrate that concept to those you wish to reach by example, then you can teach them to learn on their own.
Ed
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