Teachers: how do you deal with smirking students?

Question

I am a new teacher of adults in a college setting. I teach a class that is required but many of the students in the administrative support degree program would prefer not to take.

Many of the students come to class with a bad attitude and wish that they did not have to be there. The defense mechanism of many of the students is to show a look of boredom or have that smirk on their face that says, " who is this fool talking in front of me?"

I do everything I can to make the class interesting but you can not please everyone.

Teachers: how do you deal with bored looking and students with a smirk?

Answer 1

Make the students participate more or let that smirking student give some of his\her wise advice when you "really need someone smart to answer". That way the student will feel important and needed.  

Answer 2

1) Don't let it get to you. You are not a fool because you have been hired as a professor to teach this course. Obviously, your department thinks you are fully qualified and knowledgeable, so it doesn't matter what the punk in the back row thinks.  Maybe he thinks he knows more than you, maybe he does, but that doesn't matter because YOU are the one in the front of the room, HE is the one sitting and paying to hear you!

2) Maybe you should up the ante a bit. Make it more challenging.  Have you seen "Mona Lisa Smile" with Julia Roberts? Her character is hired as an art history prof as a prodigious girls' college. The first lecture, she discovers her students have already read the entire textbook and memorized all the artworks. So she ups the ante and shows them contemporary art. She makes them think.  You are the expert. Make the students do the work. It's not your job to put on a dog and pony show.

Good luck!  

Answer 3

i've just finished reading "the last lecture" by randy pausch. he faced some similar problems - cocky & overintelligent, bright students ... some of the ideas & techniques he used are very simple & proved effective in his classes over many years.

may be you can gat a hold of his book & read it too & apply according to your class dynamics.

hope it helps ...

all the best.

Answer 4

Imagine them all in their under ware

Answer 5

I say just to ignore their smirks and bad attitudes.  Like with elementary age students, bad attitudes are just a way of getting attention- whether the attention is positive or negative.  When they realize that no more attention will be paid to negative attitudes, they will stop.  All students deserve the right to a great education- focus on the students that are in your classroom to learn, the ones that want to be there.  Let all the students know that you are there for them, but they need to be respectful of you also.