And there seems to be lots of them: required general education courses in content areas the student deems completely uninteresting, those with a reputation for being hard, and others that require skills students know they don’t have and feel they cannot acquire. With all that teaching entails—content to get through, material to prepare, assignments to grade, office hours, and e-mail—students’ obvious negative attitudes are just one more thing that doesn’t make the job easy or pleasant. However, in most cases there are good reasons for students to be taking these courses and those are also reason enough for us to commit to doing what we can to change students’ minds. So, here’s some strategies. Most of them aren’t new or terribly creative, but all of them have been known to work.
Make It Relevant
Make the reasons why this content should be learned known to students early in the course. Don’t assume that saying it once will be enough. Let the relevance, usefulness, and value of the content be a chorus you sing throughout the course. Remember that showing and demonstrating are almost always more compelling than telling. And let there be other voices—employers, former students, notables of all sorts—who attest through comments on the course website, podcasts, and quotations shared in class that the material this course covers is essential knowledge. Regularly point out that students at the front ends of their lives do not know with certainty what they will be doing later in life.
Use Content Strategically and Developmentally
Start the course with some of your best stuff. A bit of salesmanship in the beginning is not a bad thing. Point out what is it about the content in this course that you find especially interesting, useful, amazing, or maybe even fanciful. Start with tasks that aren’t necessarily easy but do offer a reasonable chance for success. Students benefit when they encounter success early in a course requiring skills they don’t have because it builds confidence and motivation.
Blow on Any Spark of Interest You See
Fan the flame of students’ interest, add more dry kindling, do what you can to make it catch and burn. In every course, even the ones most students don’t want to take, there are some less resistant students, some whose curiosity can be piqued, some who can be persuaded, and a few who come to the course interested in the content. It doesn’t take a whole lot of interested students to influence how the rest of the class responds or to make your fire hot enough to dry out some of the wet wood.
Let Your Love of the Content Show
Be shameless, show your passion, and wear it on your sleeve. Yes, there’s a certain amount of risk involved in doing so. Academics are known to be interested in some pretty esoteric stuff. In love with old books, water beetles, the periodic table, regression analysis, really? But just beyond the campus stand countless professionals who found their life’s work in a college course with content they originally thought was weird and wouldn’t like. Future professionals, some who don’t yet know what they want to do, are enrolled in your courses this semester.
Love Learning
And let that be all kinds of learning. Let students know that you’re still learning and not just about more of the content you already know gobs about. Be learning new things, things outside your comfort zone; things that are hard; things that you couldn’t do when you first tried, still couldn’t do the second time, and got frustrated and mad at the third time. Talk about what you’re learning with students. Every course should offer students the opportunity to learn more about learning even if they never do fall in love with the content.
Be Convinced Students Can Do It
Not all of them will be able to achieve success in class, but in the vast majority of cases, it won’t be because they can’t. It will be because they didn’t. We work with students who make decisions that put their success in the course at risk. We see students with questionable abilities. We have students who fail, and in some cases it’s not a surprise. Teachers do not have divine insight, but we do know what students in trouble look like, and we have an obligation to be clear about all that success will require. Then we can stand there, ready to support their efforts knowing that students, even in students in trouble, have a much greater chance of succeeding if they have a teacher who believes in them.
Refuel Your Tanks
It takes lots of effort to get a fire going when it’s damp and windy and the snowflakes are flying. Our efforts aren’t always going be successful, or we may not be around to see success. Some fires smolder a long time before they catch. By that time, we’re someplace else, working with another pile of wet wood. So be mindful of how long and hard you’ve worked. Rest and refuel. Doing so is a necessity, not an option. This is not work you can do well if your tanks are empty.
