Student attention spam?
As an instructor I feet that it is much easier to keep the students focused, but what happens when the instructor get distracted? Are there any techniques that teach teacher how to regain their focus once there is a distraction?
I break it into 20 minutes of mini-lecture/powerpoint, 20 minutes of group or team activities and 20 minutes of a critical thinking exercise. It seems to work well.
Hi Joseph,
Humor and laughter are important elements of being an instructor. Humor helps to clam down the students, give them think breaks and helps to set them up for the phase of the course.
Gary
Hi Dru,
Right on all points. I teach from 4 until 10. All of my students come directly from work to class. They are tired and in many cases hungry. It is a challenge to get them fired up and ready to learn. When I do it is a great feeling and that is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching so much.
Gary
I've found that making a joke out of the distraction brings everyone, including the instructor back into focus. Humor is always a good form to disguise mistakes or distractions - without dwelling on the issue too much.
I believe retaining the attention span is sometimes difficult. Many students differ; they may work full or part time and not allow adequate sleep patterns. Students are some times disrupted and relocate focus of topic. The use of caffeinated products very useful and climate control can help. The course content will provide the hook needed to capture that wandering attention, and the delivery should be variable and not mono babble.
Hi Luciano,
Reflection is an important part of being an effective instructor. You have to due a status assessment of where you are and how you want to reach students if you are going to continue to grow. Well said.
Gary
I find the best way is to just stop and take a long look at the students and ask yourself what am I doing here? It gets me back.
Hi Elizabeth,
By breaking up your instruction you give your students time to concentrate and then time to relax a bit and get ready for the next phase of the class. By joking with them and letting them have a laugh you are doing a good job of refreshing their cognitive processing. Keep up the good work.
Gary
I agree with you that attention span should be kept within 15 to 20 minutes. I always make my student laugh , throw out jokes here and there, call their attention and call them for recitation to get their attention back.
thats a good idea short quick high point lessons that pertaine to the info and they can relate to also works well.
TO GET STUDENTS TO RETAIN A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF MATERIAL I TRY TO KEEP THE TIME SPAN TO NOT MORE THAN 20 MINUTES.
Hi Raquel! In addition to some of our former responses regarding instructional planning and delivery, I would say two things: first, changing the stimulus, speed, tone, and/or format of your presentation not only refocuses students, but also the instructor; second, as you are following your instructional outline, if you lose focus or get distracted, go back to your last major point as a reference, then go from there. Thanks for all of your questions and interest!
Jay Hollowell
MaxKnowledge/CEE
