Five Strategies to Engage Today's Students.

Incivility in the Classroom.

Award-winning educator Dr. Christy Price believes that, the new Five R's to reach Generation Y are as given under. My tu pence is as added in italics.

1) Relaxed learning environments.  It is of prime importance to, “Create a Relaxed Learning Environment. Hardly any Learning worth its name can take place if the environment is far from relaxed and more so if the learners themselves are anything but relaxed”.

2) Rationales for course goals, activities and grading.  Establish rationales. This should be done early on into the programme. They should be simple, easy to understand, meaningful and the participant must be able to make and visualize the sense in them. Only when this is done will it become easy to devise activities and accord grades if they are at all to be given. In my independent thinking grading as a system should be done with.

3) Relevant material linked to students and their future.  Learning material should be linked to each individual student’s future. It must make sense for the student to pursue. The student must be able to see the link between what he is studying and his chosen future, as he visualizes it for himself.

4) Research-based approaches.  Here it is not just research based. It has to be search based. This means it needs to be meaningful, individual student’s future based.

5) Rapport and Relational opportunities with fellow students and professors.  This is indeed very critical and meaningful. The facilitator must endeavour early on itself to establish a rapport with the participants and also with colleagues. Through this collective and cooperative based approach only will the programme and the delivery of the programme by all facilitators make sense and be a success.

It must be remembered that only when the team [here team refers to both participants and faculty as both are stakeholders in the drive] bonds well, will it pull together in unison for and towards success.

In case any faculty is weak in pulling his / her, own weight for any reason or on account of any ground whatsoever, it must be quickly covered by the others and the weak faculty given an opportunity to address it, through counselling, or even being given a time-out.

Adequate care must also be taken to ensure that the concerned facilitator is not castigated or made to feel hurt or impoverished on any account. In case this happens this would effect the morale of others slowly yet surely and thereby weaken the team, the cause, the efforts and the end result.

Perhaps it may be relevant say that over 90 % of the human souls are fractured souls in some way or the other. Sensitivity to others and sensitizing others is a critical area that could spell the difference between success and failure.
Thus this would enable and empower the faculty to return with zest and better, with stronger drives to deliver and make up lost ground.