Emotion and Attitude

Your students will develop their attitude toward the subject matter from your attitude toward it. Your emotion is contagious, and therefore, whatever emotion you exude about your subject matter will, most likely, be caught by your students as well.
Some classes elicit a lot of fear and anxiety on the part of students. Students talk to other students—they compare notes about the classes, the topics, the instructors and who’s hard and who’s easy.
If you will be teaching a class with a reputation for being hard, it’s important to reduce the anxiety level as anxiety itself interferes with learning. Take some time at the beginning or during class to explain, explain, and explain some more. Provide examples and real life experiences, take time together to look things up on the internet, and ask other students for examples and illustration.
Take some time to review the learning goals and objectives in the syllabus: Do they really need to know all the details of analyzing quantitative data in a beginning research methods course? Or can you simply cover the basics and make sure they understand this well and know how to apply the material?
Stay calm when the class seems to panic about the complexity of the material-- take a deep breath, and/or give them a break. Then, when you reconvene begin again and try to use a slightly different approach or angle to explain the subject matter. Do not dismiss class until you are reasonably sure you have calmed their fears. Stay upbeat and maintain your enthusiasm for the subject--- continue to explain the relevance of the subject matter to their chosen career fields, and continue to teach! Most of all, do not give up!