Tangents
I'm lucky because my students are very interested in most of the material that we cover in our courses. However, sometimes we have to limit the level of detail that we can go into on certain topics.
At times, we go off on tangents and class ends before I can finish everything in my lesson plan for the day. How can I curtail these sidetracks without hurting their enthusiasm? All the info that we discuss I would like them to know, but there's too much to talk about, and not enough time in the day!
Thanks,
Jeremy
Dave,
Good suggestion. Thanks for sharing it with us. This is what being a learning leader is about. You must be the director of the discussions if they are to be of value to students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
What I do in class when the discussion gets off track is catch a word or phrase that someone says and tie it to the next topic of discussion. This way we get back to the matter at hand without throwing the mood off. I have received a lot of positive feed back from my students on how I do that, especially if its done with a humorous twist.
Another way is to direct the the tangent back to the main topic. In other words try not to dwell on the details. Cover the question/tangent and then try to tie it back the the main topic.
Jeremy,
You can do this a couple of ways, one as the learning leader you just cut off the time spent discussing a topic. You can do this in a comfortable way by setting a time limit on how long a free range discussion will take place. Say for example you allocate 15 minutes to a certain topic. I would get a large faced timer and set it for the time. This way the students will see it setting at the front of the class and will focus more in terms of discussing. When the bell goes off then everyone is cued to move on and you don't have to be a "bad guy" because the timer shut the discussion off not you, even though you did set the time limit. You will be surprised at how this with students. Another way is to have the students write down their questions on 3X5 cards. You collect them and then quickly group them so you control the diversity of the discussion and the range of topics covered.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
