students not understanding

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Danielle_Shumaker
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Joined: Wed May 05, 2004 4:25 am

students not understanding

Post by Danielle_Shumaker » Wed May 05, 2004 4:35 am

What do you do when you have students not understanding the material, but are pressed for time to try to get them to understand the material?

dduck
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Post by dduck » Fri May 07, 2004 2:05 pm

There are a few things to consider, 1) that the students aren't grasping the material, 2) time pressures and 3) the class aims.

If you worry about the time pressures too much you end up rushing everything, ending up with a class of students who have learnt nothing at all! Better to slow the pace of the class such that you're taking a good proportion of them with you. You are there after all for them. (I hope!) Your boss might not be so keen that you're not covering enough material, and quite likely s/he'll blame you.

With this in mind, if your aim is just to cover the material then you can try streamling the material, e.g. skip things that are tedious or dull, plus you could give out the really time-consuming exercises as homework.

However, if your students have exams at the end of the course you'll need to streamline _and_ more importantly encourage them to practise as much as possible outside the class.

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