For many nail school instructors, it is an ongoing challenge to find fresh material that keeps students engaged and interested in learning. Keeping current with, and teaching new trends and techniques in the nail industry can be overwhelming. Additionally, bridging the gap between classroom knowledge and real life scenarios can be tricky, but adding guest speakers to your curriculum is a sure-fire way to drive classroom lessons home and enhance students’ overall educational experience.

By conveying current, realistic information, guest speakers offer more diverse points of view not readily available in textbooks. Speakers make a huge impact on learning, which help students make the connection between what they learn in class to the real world.

Launching a guest speaker series in your class can be beneficial for both you and your students. While students have the opportunity to learn about the nail business from various perspectives, you too can enjoy a break from teaching and learn more about topics with which you may not be familiar.  Also, by being able to observe your students learning new topics from guest speakers, you may also notice certain lectures that pique your students’ interests, which you can explore more together during regular class times.

Ask your students whether there are certain areas that they would like to learn more about. Find out what their interests are, what they want more information about, or what their goals are in the nail business, and arrange guest speakers based on what sparks their attention. You may even want to consider forming a guest panel of speakers that discusses one topic from various viewpoints or a variety of subjects from different perspectives. Involving students in the selection of topics will make your classroom more interactive and keep students engaged.

Having guest speakers in your classes is not only a great way for students to learn, but it also introduces students to different career options and creates great networking and community connection opportunities.

So if you find that it is challenging to keep your students interested and engaged, add some pizazz to your lessons by introducing exciting guest speakers from your community.

Tiffani Douglas is a licensed nail technician, speaker, and beauty marketing professional with more than 20 years experience in the beauty industry. She is also the author of Straight Outta Beauty School – 10 Things You Need to Know and Do After Graduation, which will be available on Amazon June 1, 2016.

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