Help Needed! Bad Attitudes

Yesterday we started our Spring term. I am teaching the same courses that I taught last semester, Microbiology for Health Sciences and Introductory Biology (non-majors). I am doing a major course overhaul for Microbiology (the subject of future posts I’m sure) but I am leaving the Intro Bio course alone for the most part. I am happy with the course schedule, labs, etc and I can’t afford to make major changes to two courses at once. Despite being feeling pretty confident about my organization, I wasn’t completely satisfied with my Intro Bio class last semester. Often times I felt like I was speaking to zombies and student performance on exams was absolutely abysmal. It didn’t seem to matter what I did. I did demonstrations. I had active lecture activities. We played games. I used the clicker. I feel like I put together a well organized, engaging course, but I still did not get the results I desired. In previous semesters I had some students that excelled, and others that bombed and lots of students in the middle. I really had not students last semester that did really well. My fellow faculty tell me that some semesters are just like that. I don’t know, I guess we’ll have to see what happens this semester. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like we’re off to a very good start. I had several students yesterday with bad attitudes. They were combative and put me on the defensive right from the start. They complained about the cost of the materials. One student repeatedly stopped me in the middle of my lecture to complain that I was moving too fast (yes I talk fast, but all my notes are online and it was just an introductory lecture, not major subject matter) and then complained that she was going to have to go home and read the material in the book. That can’t be good. How can I turn the attitudes around? What tools can I use to foster a spirit of learning? I don’t want an “Me vs. Them” rapport. It might be this one student, but I don’t know. I could use any suggestions that you might have. Help!!!!