I would like to suggest using this process to build a fundamental understanding of what the course you are teaching is all about, where it's headed and what will be gained when the student gets there. In our discussion of such topics as short-term financial planning, selection of capital investments, capital structure planning, and valuation of the business enterprise, we will continually refer to the problem of proper risk assessment and the necessity of viewing alternative courses of action in terms of marginal costs and marginal benefits. Analyzing the course by pursuing the answers to these kinds of questions helps students view the course through the professor's perspective. With these fundamental pieces in place, each lecture, reading and discussion can be integrated and understood within the big picture.
Some students approach their courses with surprising ignorance.
They assume the passive role of being recipients, not participants, of their education. Given that they are not the professor, they accept that course material seems arbitrary and disconnected. In the classroom, however, such ignorance is not bliss. It's about humanistic psychology, or humanism, or something like that. Something to do with theories of personality, but not the usual theories.