Why Connect With Your Teachers Engaging Screenagers?
Why Connect With Your Teachers Engaging Screenagers?
Why should I connect with my instructor many Engaging Screenagers ask?
In secondary/high school and undergraduate studies, I rarely talked to my teachers/instructors.
It’s interesting how the most Engaging Screenagers (aren’t we are all now?) talk to their friends, but when it comes to sharing with education (authority figures?) things get much more quiet.
When I was leading the Dale Carnegie course in public speaking, a large part of my duties was to get to know the class members and help the connect what they learned in class to solve problems in their personal and professional lives.
When I was in school, the teachers/instructors mainly connected what we learned in class to solve problems on the exam.
Other than get high marks on the exam, get a good job, and and live happily ever after, the exams connected to little.
In graduate school, things were different.
Professors were more like guides as we were all these little apprentice researchers, learners, and graduate assistant teachers.
The professors, assistant professors, and other instructors were different.
They were helpful, they were guiding, they were human!
As Dale Carnegie says, they were genuinely interested in us graduate students.
We were now on the same team.
What was the difference?
They treated us as human too.
Why, because they had much more time to devote to us, we shared a passion for the subject we were all studying.
We were all engaging together in this pursuit of knowledge, of truth.
This had a profound impact on my thinking about learning and teaching.
We were now working together to achieve success.
My passion for engaging in all students this same way was beginning to burn even hotter.
Whenever I teach a class I try to learn as much about the learners as I am able.
Back then I would ask students for lots of information, but as it was not required, most would give very little information.
Teaching public speaking was a great way to get to gather information because they shared their lives and experiences in their speeches.
That made it more easy for me to get to know my students and then connect their learning to make their lives better.
Where they normally had little connection of course content with their lives (junk-engagement,) I focused on connecting(making it relevant) as much as I could to their (family, personal, school, work) lives to support their growth (optimal engagement.)
Every time my students would report back to me how they had a breakthrough success in their lives, I would celebrate with them and then go home and celebrate again and again.
As I’ve mentioned before, in all my classes I gather information to make the courses more and more relevant to learners, so my learners can go have bigger breakthrough successes.
Why don’t instructors interact more with learners in school and university?
The answer is time and money.
Nowadays there is so much pressure on educators that they have less and less time to get to know their learners.
Only a few learners will take the time to get to know their teachers or any authority figures in their lives.
In fact, Malcolm Gladwell in, The Outliers, talks about how he found a socio economic difference where middle class parents help their children learn to be successful.
If you are smart Screenagers, you will get to know every teacher and instructor (this goes for any manager, supervisor, leader, etc. too) in your life.
Know your teachers to let them support your success.
Remember, come join tomorrow to see more Improving Your Engagement with Screenagers and others inspirational experiences and ideas for Optimal Engagement in the ScreenAge.
Remember to engage tomorrow.
Following with you.
Keep it simple.
All the Best, Warren
SOCIAL
- JOIN THE CURATION: “Engage in the Screen Age”
- TWITTER: @DrWarrenLINGER
- FACEBOOK: Dr Warren LINGER
- GOOGLE+: +WarrenLINGER
- LINKEDIN: www.linkedin.com/in/DrWarrenLINGER
- TUBE SUBSCRIBE: gg.gg/YouTubeDrWarren
Dr Warren LINGER © 2017
Comments
Post a Comment