Teaching is an honorable, but difficult, job to do. Economics instructors working in higher education must rapidly and thoroughly communicate complex concepts and theories within tight semester time frames, effectively enough that most students will learn the concepts and pass the course.
1. Make an effort to spend time individually with each student. These can be brief exchanges in the hallway between classes or as everyone is packing up their books at the end of the school day. This gives you the opportunity to get to know them more personally and will help create a more positive relationship with them. This is especially effective for students who are difficult or shy.
2. Ask questions and seek your student’s opinions
One of the best ways to increase student engagement is to directly solicit their thoughts on the material at hand. Giving your students the expectation that you might call on them will inevitably cause them to handle the materials more critically, and pay more attention. It’s an excellent way of focusing students’ minds and instilling in them a healthy scepticism that’s essential to all good study.
3. Get to know your students
Not all students learn the same way. Some learn better by listening to you explain things, some learn better by reading information out loud, while some prefer discussions and debates. Get to know the learning styles of your students, and try to craft lessons in a way that appeals to all of these styles. Try to know your students on a more personal level, as well, like getting to know what hobbies they enjoy, what music they listen to, and so on. It will be easier to appeal to them and raise their interest on a subject by offering real-life examples that they can relate to.
4. Integrate technology
Look, there’s no going around it: technology is here to stay, even in the classroom, whether we like it or not. But instead of making devices your enemy, make them part of the process, and try to integrate them into your lessons. This way, you won’t have students playing on their smartphones under their desks during a lesson. Make the best of gamification, interactive education apps, audiobooks, to motivate students to pay attention and explore new subjects in creative ways.
5. Encourage group discussion
Consider breaking up your lectures by having a segment in which the class splits into small groups of 3-6 and discusses a topic or specific question amongst themselves. Good examples can include coming up with critiques of a specific economic model, attempting to derive a specific result from a model or a proof, listing examples of relevant economic policies, etc.
