Get Your Students Hired
I have found that a great way to keep students focused is to prepare my handouts with some note pages at the end, that way they don't need a laptop to take notes. This and a combination of spot-demos really get students to pay attention.
Hi Annejeanette,
Great way to bring variety to the class flow and to keep the interest of the students. Also, your time of letting them review what has been covered is a good way for them to reflect what they have just covered and this will help them with storing the content in their memory banks.
Gary
After I complete a mini lecture I will have the students view a comical or relevant podcast on iTunes and ask them questions related to the lecture and the podcast. It has helped break up the lectures and keep the attention of many of my students.
That is a great idea Andres. I think that the main objective is to be cognizant of attention span and variable learning styles. If a variety of methodologies are utilized chances are better to keep students focused.
I do something a little like that. I do a current topic between the mini-lectures just to get them to loosen up a little. It's usually something in the news that is either major or relates to their interests or socioeconomic standing. Also, talking about humerous incidents in the field that has happened to either myself or peers serves the same purpose and makes it easier to swing back into the lecture focus.
Hi Jacqueline,
Good strategy. Thanks for sharing it with us. This will really be of value to other instructors.
Gary
Good idea! One of the things I do is give a review of the mini lecture 20 mins or so...however, I break them up into groups then we play hot patato who ever has the ball will have the question asked...get's their energy going and they are awake...these are evening students so, it works pretty well for the one's that have a tendency to fall asleep.
Hi Pamela,
Great example of how an effective instructor can "read" a situation and then react to it to get the students focused back on topic once again.
Gary
Sometimes I use dirty little tricks to keeps students focused.. One thing I do is let them get "unfocused" for periods of time and get them a bit off subject. For example, if I discuss a current topic that is impacting the community or a subject that is always on peoples' minds, such as communicatin between the sexes, the students that were tuning out the actual information start to perk up and listen.. Once I get their attention again, then I do a gradual transition back to the subject at hand...