Purpose Statement
It is often necessary
for students to pay attention and maintain concentration on the subject matter
and focus of the class. Yet, for some, their minds soon wander away, perhaps
off on mini-mental holidays, reliving the fantasies of romance and adventure,
hopeful of more. Alternatively, the student may be preoccupied with worries and
problems, reviewing and mentally rehearsing ways of coping with a particular
problem.
In both instances of lapsed attention, the focus lost has been pulled away by
the power of emotion-laced preoccupations. Compared to the powerful states of
excitement and romance, in the first instance, or of fear and anxiety in the
second, the emotions of curiosity and interest in the official "subject
matter" often do nor rise to the level of fascination; are perhaps at risk
of lapsing into boredom.
How then can we help students pay attention and sustain focus? How can we as
teachers "grab and hold" the attention of our students when the
subject matter does not entail the "life and death" significance of
passion and pain?
The activities that follow are approaches I've found helpful to sustain student
attention. These approaches seek to play, to play to the heart as well as to
the head in the court of education.
Description of Activity
Curiosity and Interest
Inducing Aides are helpful to sustain involvement, engagement and attention.
1. Have students form into small groups, much like a cooperative learning
exercise, to briefly analyze or discuss some topic. Peer acceptance and
valuation have more currency that faculty valuation. Besides, they will benefit
most by learning to work well with each other.
2. "Knowledge should make a difference for having it," so the
pragmatists say. Ask students to think of how they could utilize or apply what
they are learning to their own life circumstance: past, present or future.
3. Attack some theoretical "straw man," position or thesis,
demonstrate the antithesis and the sublimation of aggression in the same breath
in your intellectual attack, and allow the students the vicarious and
voyeuristic pleasures of destroying some hypothetical "enemy." Then
press students to reach for a synthesis. Hegel and Freud stand if not behind at
least under you on this (;-)
Fear of Failure Inducing Aides are especially helpful for learning that
requires conscious, effortful processing of information, focussed attention and
attention to details.
1. Remind students of the upcoming exam and that the material will be tested.
2. Have students occasionally recite the Big Mac mantra: "Take fries with
that order?"
3. From the Sixties movie: "The Paper Chase" in which the law
professor says: "Look to the person to your left, look to the person to
your right. Of the three of you, one will not pass this course. Don't let it be
you." Modern version: same rendition followed by the Big Mac mantra.
Happy, Relaxed Mood Induction Aides are especially helpful for learning that resembles
subconscious, effortless and somewhat automatic processing of information,
free-floating attention, more impressionistic and reflective than realistic and
sharply detailed. More appropriate for appreciating the forest and the lay of
the land that for knowing about the particular trees and branches of knowledge.
1. Tell a mini-story, not about the subject matter per se, but about your
becoming interested in or use of the knowledge. Something meaningful, something
relevant; a good story, one with a beginning, middle and positive ending.
2. Ask students to partner up with someone near by to also trade
"stories" relevant to the subject matter, with perhaps a particular
focus supplied by the instructor.
3. Use the Premack principle: "Positive activities, e.g. watching an
interesting video clip, can serve to reinforce and strengthen the quality of
performance in preceding activities.
Materials Needed
Imagination, daring,
mirth and the girth of 50 years.
this web page was created
on 11/17/99 at 10:36:11 AM
and modified on 11/17/99 at 10:36:11 AM