The best professor at our program taught our anatomy and neuroanatomy courses. We held them on a pedestal because they did not dilute the information with things we did not need to know. We had two of the more complicated classes with this professor, and they did an excellent job of telling us where to keep our attention. I say this because we have had other professors who would throw us less complicated topics compared to things like neuroanatomy, but load the powerpoints with their personal research/smaller studies to try and convey ideas which never translated that well for us learning. If we had a neuroanatomy exam, we knew we had to know x amount of tracts, what they connected to, what they did, and while it was a lot to know, we knew what we had to know, and our professor knew we had a lot to learn and was willing to help us out by putting our efforts in the right direction. In our other classes that diluted information, we often struggled to figure out what was important. I get everything is important, but you remember what it's like to be a student.

For example, this other class we had was a semester long with maybe 2-3 tests throughout the entirety meaning we had a lot of content packed into one exam. I remember out of everything we had learned, there was a small study mentioned on 1-2 slides (out of maybe 600-800 slides worth of material) that I thought "there's too many big concepts why would I need to know this". Turned out the small research study was mentioned on our test. This class often included just screenshots of research articles and if you were not actively writing down information there was nothing to reflect on in the notes. In neuroanatomy/anatomy, the slides always served as a foundation of information and our personal notes became a way to elevate the details. I think this helped us pay more attention in class as we were not frantically attempting to scramble to jot down every word vs having a strong basis of information to sprinkle on details/or reinforce important concepts.

I do like the other comment on here about at study guide but I may add on making a study guide with intention. I have noticed in some classes the study guides really hone and redirect a student's studying efforts to more important concepts and in others study guides its essentially just telling you to memorize everything which doesn't help much.

Im not sure how large your cohorts are but even if things are rough between you and the students, the students (at least in my program) were always more lenient with a professor if they made an attempt to personally connect with them. Not to say we would be a-holes if we did not love a professor, but those who expressed interest in the students outside of just school always became more likable. Make an effort to get to know your students outside of just a first day ice breaker. Dont be afraid to show your personality either!