In a longer class, a teacher has the luxury of presenting varied learning styles. This breaks up the class into sections so the students can engage again after their attention span has worn off.
Amy,
Right you are. I teach from 4 until 10 pm so I use a lot of different activities and deliveries. As you know if you don't they start to drift away and then the learning process is greatly reduced.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Good afternoon.... one thing I read that I agree with 100% is that as instructors we play many different roles... one role that I can really relate to is that of an actor. Shortly before "stepping on stage" I often review and prepare for my scene! It is our job to keep all students engaged and interested. Standing in one spot and maintaining a monotone dialogue simply will not work.
Walking the room and looking directly at the student, one student at a time, talking directly to them is extremely engaging. Being somewhat animated, not afraid to go to any extreme to make that lecture "memorable"... I will take one for the team! If the students laugh, then I have succeeded. If the students tear up, then I have succeeded. These are memorable moments... these are lasting impressions.... these are engaged students, they have learned!
Donna,
An instructor needs to "own" the room when teaching and your comments reinforce how that is done. Thank you for these good ideas about how to be an effective and efficient instructor that engages students.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
When I see that students are starting to disengage, I will speak about personal experiences from the field to sort of "shock" their attention back to me. I also find that they really like seeing how what they learn in class, is actually used in the hospital field.
Amanda,
Good way to reconnect with your students. As you have noticed they really like hearing stories from the field. These stories reinforce what you are sharing with them in class and as a result they see more value in the content.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Learning activities enhance student engagement as well as increase the chance of students retaining the information thus really "learning" the material.
Kristin,
They are what makes the classes fun because they engage the students in many different ways as they use the content that has been shared with them.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
some of the strategies for keeping the students engage in learning are try not to bore them to death with all lecture, put more labs in, reward them for getting there work done. do demonstrations, use technology (you tube, movies, etc.) Hand outs. Field trips. work them in teams.
Benedict,
Great list of ways to keep students engaged.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
This effort is very true in my classroom as well.
I teach mid day students which most if not all have just left work for the day. Animation is key for me to make them look forward to todays discussion. One point though is it takes a lot of energy to be animated!
DAVID,
Yes, it does take a lot of energy. I teach from 4 until 10 pm and my students have just gotten off work as well. They are tired so I need to do a lot of things to ramp up the energy level and keep them excited about learning for the duration of the class session.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I try to plan an activity on which we can build for the entire term. For example, presenting a project that can broken into small parts, each part requiring the student to master a particular competency or skill before preceding to the next. By the end of the term, the project is complete. The sum is greater than its parts. As the student completes each competency, s/he stays engaged and motivated realizing that learning is occurring.
I like to play games like jeopardy as review. I use different resources like crossword puzzles and word searches to give the student s a different approach to learning. Something new I am trying with my next class teaching cell structure, I am having the students build a cell.
Colleen,
I use this game a lot in my classes as well. My students love playing it and they get competitive real quick when the game starts. In the end they have fun and they realize they actually know a lot more than they think they do.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
Some of the strategies that can be used to keep students engaged throughout the class is to change up the learning style. If you are giving a lecture you can change the approach by to a PowerPoint to get the students attention again.
Delivering materials using different methods
One method which i use is to prepare a demonstration to hook the students attention. This usually leads to an activity using the demonstration as the foundation for that days class. Then end the class with questions from students and then my questions to them about what they remembered or gained from the class that day. So this is a three part approach that uses information presented, activities with the information, then what did you learn new or what did you like about the new data, with questions back and forth. One must prepare for a three hour class.
For my classroom, I keep my students engaged by interactive learning....I teach Anatomy and Physiology at a technical college and we don't have labs as we did in universities...so as I teach my topics I turn my classroom into a lab by bringing in various items to support what I am teaching...the class gets involved by doing hands on and I notice they grasp the lecture material more easily this way...I teach how I learn too...which seems to have been 80%of my students over the past 2 years of my teaching career..lucky me :-)
LaTanya,
The more senses you can get the students to use the better. You are involving a number of the senses with this method and showing them both application and relevancy in the content you are offering.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
