Keeping Students Attention
I teach in the evenings. How do you keep from loosing students attention as the night goes on.
Hi Kurt, Thanks for your post to the forum. As a former night student myself, I agree that we need to make those classes as dynamic as possible. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
The level of energy definitely needs to be increased with evening classes. I think that questioning needs to be simplified and straight forward. Brain storming can be difficult if it is too extensive. Most certainly use the white board more (hand drawings, sketches, etc. ) than a boring power point presentation. Watching you draw on the board keeps them curious. Even writing the questions on the boards along with verbally asking seems to help.
I will always try to keep the student's attention, but if I notice them losing their attention, I will change techniques to asking more questions of them to get them engaged again. Or changing to a more hands on activity usually will work well.
I too have evening students and they often are tired after a long day of work. I do my best to vary delivery as much as possible. It's difficult at times to keep interest through some of the drier material.
Hi Melvin - Thanks for your post to the forum. I was an evening student when I went back to school to finish my BA. It was often grueling!! My advice is to have as much activity as possible. For example - lecture for 20 minutes, then have students get into groups to work on a question you will pose. Find some relevant video clips on YouTube (or anyplace!) and play a video. Have a Q&A sesion on the topic, etc. Basically - Keep things hopping! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan
