Professor: A Person who professes. (generally a person who has done a Ph.D.)
Every professor was once a student, and this gives them the power to understand students and their thinking processes. This is the major advantage for a professor that they can easily guess or understand which student is taking part in his/her class. But the new generation is much more advanced than millennials. Those who are professors this year may be a baby boomer, Generation X, or a millennial; they saw a different environment in their schools or college in comparison to Generation Z or the coming Generation Alpha. So, for a professor, it’s compulsory to understand the Z and the Alpha generations. This will make it easy to interpret the thought of a student, what he or she is trying to say. In this article, you will be able to learn effective tips and strategies for professors to improve college teaching. You can also read some of our Trending Topics.
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Teaching tips which work for professors ( freshers/professionals)
- Encourage the good connection between you and students:-
To become everyone’s favorite professor, you should have a strong connection with yourself and your students. And this is very important for a student and a professor’s success. Your involvement in the student’s study will encourage him to improve his performance. Faculty should open up the methods of communication, like email, phone calls, WhatsApp, etc.
Tips to build goodwill among students
- Allow students to contact you after college.
- Teaching should not belong only to a room. You can invite them to the library, computer lab, etc.
- I know your students by name.
- Advise students on their career and academic opportunities.
- Share your personal experience to let them understand the difficulty in real life.
- Encourage active learning (which includes listing and speaking in the class):-
Active participation in class is very necessary. A professor should encourage students to speak more and make the current session interactive. This helps you to understand the student’s thinking process, which you can enhance by adding some more values to it.
Your support will help them to participate in the class, engage with study material, and collaborate with their classmates.
Here are some methods with which you can enhance active learning
- Cas-based problem solving
- Debate participation
- Group discussion
- Peer instruction exercise:- speed MCQs solving, peer-to-peer discussions, etc.
- Give/take prompt constructive feedback.
Feedback plays a vital role in a student’s overall growth. We know that self-analysis in students is not enough to make a judgment whether they have enough knowledge or not. And because of this, students think that what they have done so far is the best and no improvement or enhancement is required. Here, your feedback comes in the role, and this will help in evaluating their current knowledge and capabilities. Here major thing you need to keep in mind is that the students you are teaching are not kids, so your feedback should be constructive, not destructive. Do not give rude or discourteous feedback, as it will create a negative image and may be destructive.
Here are some main objectives that can only be fulfilled by giving prompt feedback to students
- Feedback is a justification for their grade or the marks they received.
- Give a hint to a student where he/she need improvement
- Build self-analysis
- Motivate them to focus on the assignment
- Also, increase positivity.
- Give Case Studies and an assignment.
Some students are deductive and some are inductive in nature. Means some can easily learn from a theory that you teach in class, but some won’t. They need to assign case studies and assignments to check if your teaching in class is impactful or if students really get benefits from it. Giving assignments is very necessary to build and maintain the subject knowledge among them.
Here are some advantages of assigning case studies and assignments
- Enhance problem-solving ability.
- Improve their decision-making ability in difficult situations
- Use of tools and respective knowledge to solve the problem.
A systematic approach to their case study analysis.
- What is the issue?
- Major goal of the analysis?
- Context of the problem?
- What key facts should be considered?
- Are all the alternatives available to the decision-maker?
- What would you recommend — and why?
- Prepare yourself before every lecture.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a fresher or an experienced teacher. Your preparation and attitude are the key to boosting the energy of the students and making the class interactive. Preparation will help you deliver your lecture perfectly. Taking lectures is a daily activity, and you may be thinking that it’s very easy for you to deliver a lecture. I also agree with you, but let me tell you, sometimes students ask questions that you may not know. So it’s good to prepare yourself before every lecture. This can be one of the good teaching tips for professors.
Here is a list of things that you can prepare before your class.
- You can make a list of questions that you can ask during the class.
- Prepare a list of assignments which include writing (like an essay, research paper, case study, etc), quiz or learning activity ( which include descriptive, objective, fill-in-the-blanks, etc).
- Draft a course schedule.
- Create a lesson plan.
- Go through the complete lesson to understand the objective. Now, what does preparation mean?
- Plan the flow of your lecture
- Prepare some speaking notes that will streamline the teaching flow
- Practice your lecture until you become a professional
- Use technology to make the class interactive, like the use of PPT, videos, etc.
- Distribute lecture assets before the lecture.
Your lecture may require prior knowledge or some papers to be distributed among all the students. To manage the time and rhythm of the class, you can distribute them a day before or use email or WhatsApp to distribute. This is beneficial for you in several ways.
- Save a lot of time
- Class will not be disrupted by the nuisance.
- Students will be more focused if they know the topic and content earlier.
- You will get a good response when questions are asked.
- Be clear and concise.
It’s clear that if you are teaching a student who has already completed his senior secondary (10+2), even a postgraduate student(10+2+3) he/she will judge you or your capabilities if your lecture moves out of the topic. So, to maintain the interest of the students, you should be very clear about the topic. Discipline is not only the prerequisite for teaching, but how a mentor explains topics to students is equally important.
- Be social & Interview students.
In today’s era, a digital footprint is necessary to show your skill and professionalism. Teachers can also use social media to advance their teaching careers. This will give teachers a boost to their goodwill outside the physical boundaries. Professors can also counsel students from other cities, even from other countries.
- Avoid punishments & keep an Eye on Every Student and address bad behaviour quickly.
Punishment is used to decrease the undesirable behavior of students. But punishment is not the only solution to improve a student. There are lots of other things that you can do to improve the productivity or behavior of a student. You can give them extra assignments, case studies, or practicals. It’s true that in every class there are such students who always try to disturb the whole class. You should keep an eye on them and observe them closely. They may be doing a nuisance because it’s their nature, or maybe just for fun. Here are a few tips with which you can improve their nature
- Provide opportunities for them to speak in the class.
- Involve students in your daily teaching.
- Pay attention to the students who don’t pay attention and reward their strengths & strengthen their weaknesses.
- Be expressive and smile while teaching.
- Encourage initiatives & organize games (maybe Indoor, outdoor, or digital games)
Research has shown that games are very effective for mental and physical improvements. Games can be played during the study. There are several games that will help students solve problems easily and help them understand how to solve problems.
There are several benefits of playing games during or after class.
- Reduce stress and strengthen thought process.
- Enhance brain and reasoning abilities.
- Addon to existing knowledge
- Team building and motivation
We often receive questions and queries from professors that
How can a teacher improve their skills to take online classes?
What additional skills are required for online classes?
Are there any technical skills required?
Is online teaching effective? And many more…
If you are taking offline lectures, then online lectures are not a big deal for you. Whereas you should be aware of some basic things, like which software you will be using for online classes, how you can distribute and accept answers or assignments from students, etc. Online classes have a different environment. What you need to do is to prepare yourself and keep below researched online teaching strategic points in mind.
- Set up an adequate environment to take online classes.
- Be visible to students via webcam.
- Prepare the flow of the class.
- Address questions from students in between or after your lecture.
- Share your official email or contact number with students for further queries.
- Be prepared for the most common technical issue, like
- Internet connectivity
- Hardware or software issues
- Regular power supply, etc
- Share notes after your lecture.
- Decide on the class size.
- Respond to the questions:- It’s not possible to address each question during the online class. You can ask students to mail you or ask a question in chat, which you can answer after the class.