Inattentive students
I have a student that was very inattentive during every term but with devotion and attentiveness on my part to her, she has done great with continuing out of my class. She used to come back from breaks late by 10 min or more. She was never engaged in any class activities on her own free will. I took the time to get to know her a little bit without showing any favoring. She is very young and has many things going on in her life outside of school. We came to an understanding and worked together with her to make it fun for her. Now she comes back now and then to talk to me about school even though she isn't in my class anymore. Very rewarding. These strategies work.
When I have inattentive students in my class I usually have partner projects purposely to involve the inattentive students in a small (2) people group setting to get conversastion and interraction going on a private level and then have one write and the inattentive student present. Outcome is always very satisfying. Just a thought.
I'm in the middle of working with a stuedent who routinely falls asleep in my class. She has a lot of personal difficuly in her life, but is not surprisingly, having to repeat my class after she failed it the first time. I was surprised to learn that the other students reacted strongly and thought that it was a very disrespectful thing for that student to fall asleep. That student got no support from her classmates. Next time around I am going to implement the suggestions I am learning from others.
I can't help but try and call on that student for their reaction to a comment. I have found that they are actually paying attention.. It was my misread.
