Capturing student attention ( Hands on Activities)
In class, I like to involve the students as much as possible with hands on group activities. I have found that prepping class at least one week before will help prepare for the rigors of teaching and helps keep me stay on tract. With the prepping done, I can concentrate on group activities more. Last week for instance in Microbiology, the class broke up into 5 different groups not teams, it is very important that you do not have the students break up in to teams by doing this it will increase negative outcomes. With the groups assigned, the class played Wheel of Fortune but with the categories pertaining to Microbiology. The class hand a lot of fun and participation was extremely high. The very next week the class took a weekly quiz on what was covered that week. The Quiz results was outstanding, 97% of the class received 98% or better on their quiz. I Think that hands on learning for most students get results.
I wonder how many curicula have programed time available to play games, break into groups, and expend time that is not consistent with what other teachers have to operate within the same presentation time. If the students are being challenged and you've "adequately motivated" the students early in the course, why the need? The question I would ask is this: Are we training good quiz takers or are we preparing them to be good students in microbiology?
Hi James
My classes are small sometimes as small as 3 students. So I start out with small groups. I encourage students to help one another. They learn by teaching. Everyone wins!
Cheri Elkin
Right on! I have broken up my class into debates about certain topics, used small group activities, and used fascinating videos as an introduction or to a review/reinforce a topic. They are always very engaged when I do this and learning new skills at the same time.
Hi James
I could not agree more. It is difficult for students to pay attention for longer than 30 minutes no matter how interesting the topic. I teach accounting which is analytical and hard for most students to grasp. We spend a lot of time in class doing exercises and problems. I usually assign a problem similar to one we've already gone over in class. Most of my students are older and have some life experience. They love to talk about how the concepts they learn in class apply to current or past jobs. Many students have worked in restaurants, retail stores, and bars. The control of inventory is therefore a popular topic.
Hi Lillian,
Great mixture, learning while having fun!! Students love it!
Patricia
I agree, using resources to make the class intersting and fun with change up activities each day is helpful. Students do notlike boring same each day classes.
Hi James;
I agree breaking the class into teams, and playing "game show like" games helps the class to have fun and learn at the same time
Attention through class prep,power point lab and group activities and the oucome is endless for student success.
