Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Attention
Focusing students attention is one of the most fundamental management challenges a teacher face daily, hourly, and moment to moment on any classroom. Engaging and involving students on task in groups or individual learning experiences is what attention is all about. Researches showed many strategies that could be used to hold students attention, teacher physical movement is one of them. Continuous physical movement during instruction is critical to maintain the highest level of attention. The movement doesn't have to be a break from the focus of the lesson, but if students move periodically, they will remain more alert and focused for longer period of time.
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Physical movement is important to keep students focused and involved with the teacher during the lecture discussion. However, there is another thing which is of equal importance to the movement which the tone of teacher's voice. When a teacher tends to talk without varying the tone of her voice this would allow her loses most of her students' attention. It is very important that a teacher knows when it is suitable to talk loudly and when to talk in low voice. Keeping students focused is influenced by other factors for example how interesting the topic is etc...
ReplyDeleteThat's right farah, its not exaggeration if we say that the first thing that a teacher most care about during planning is how to hold students attention. Holding students attention from the beginning of the session make students active all the period, this make no need for any filler since time is filled with active activities that make students very interest and keep them away from any bored that code for noisy behaviors.
ReplyDeleteThere are several ways that teacher's can do to grasp students' attention. The teacher can get the students attention when arousing their curiosity and anticipation by asking interesting questions, showing student pictures, usage of real life examples, and adding a bit mystery... all can work.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the problem is how to maintain such motivation, how to maintain students' attention and involvement?
I agree with you Ammar and Farah that the teachers' physical movement and tone are important, but I think that being well prepared and avoiding long term instructions can also work. Teacher in this case make learning more students centered, and in this case the teacher make efforts to greatly increase students response.
Skillful teachers lay the groundwork for focusing student’s attention by systematically incorporating many principles into the everyday fabric of classroom life. To keep students involved and focused the teacher should use besides planning for physical movements a range of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic explanatory devices when presenting information. Also the teacher should pay attention to the feeling tone of the learning experience and mood of students, and adjust when necessary.
ReplyDeleteThis is very right coz when we were kids the teachers of history and geography were always sitting on the seat behind their desks and give the lesson.A class like that is very bored and we were chatting all the time.So the teacher is the main controller of the student's attention. I personally was using these strategies when i gave kgs:
ReplyDelete1 .Hold up your hand and say, "Give Me Five." The children put their hands in the air and shout "five!" As they count down to one, they get progressively quieter until "one" is said in a whisper. Or, after saying, "Give me five," everyone puts their hand in the air and counts loudly using their fingers from 1 to 5.
2.Say, in a normal tone of voice, "Clap once if you can hear me." Those listening will quiet down and clap one time. Then say, "Clap twice if you can hear me." More children respond with two claps. Finally say, "Clap three times if you can hear me." By this time you should have the attention of your students.
Those are just 2 but i really learned many strategies because they are very necessary to grasp their attention.
Holding student attention is one of the most important things that a teacher should be aware of inside the classroom. Teachers, who are always conveying relevant information and messages, have to maintain a number of techniques to keep students focused on the lesson. The teacher should plan the work, move quickly, engage the students in the lesson plan, manage distractions and maintain relevance throughout.
ReplyDelete