Whether teaching adult or young students, it is a great challenge for every teacher to get his students’ attention. How to compete with the distractions of a modern student’s life? How to interest them in the subject you are offering when they already have so immediate, exciting, and easy options for entertainment? How to get them to pay attention in a world of true gratification?
Following are a few strategies that you can count on to get students’ attention when needed.
- Exercise
Before beginning your lesson, you can ask students to join you doing a light exercise for at least two-minutes. In this way, you can do knee bends, jumping jacks, stretches, or some favorite yoga poses to spike up the heart rate.
Several studies show that a health exercise boosts brain functions, improves mood, and increase learning. Also, it clears the mental clutter and provides the energy that fulfills students’ needs to be at their best.
Once you start using exercise breaks regularly, it may get a big difference in students’ attentiveness and performance as well.
- Storytelling
Storytelling is one of the powerful ways to introduce lessons. Nothing captures attention like it. For instance, in a class of physics, you can tell a five-minute story about your first roller coaster ride and by the time you get to the topic of potential energy. In this way, every student will strap in.
The inherent mystery in the stories draws students’ attention and take them into the world you create for them. They remember such stories and transform your descriptions into moving pictures in their heads.
When you teach students by telling stories, it links their memories, viewpoints, and emotions to the objectives of your lesson. And also, it makes the understanding of complex ideas like potential energy much easier.
- Curiosity
No matter what the age is, every student is abundantly curious. Although it is a comparatively simple strategy, it is not less effective. It can be used as many times as you can a day, and it will never lose its attention-attracting luster.
The strategy of curiosity starts with a promise. The teacher asks the students to stick with him and pay close attention for mental engagement throughout early stages of a particular lesson. And if they do, there will be pay off for them at the end.
By holding back the most interesting part of the lesson, you give students a compelling reason to pay attention until the end.
Conclusion:
These are some household strategies that would make you stand in front of a class full of students and grab their attention confidently.
Author Bio:
Oscar Wheeler is a qualified and experienced student career counselor who have been researching and addressing the various insights and changing trends in the field of online education since a couple of years on his blog. He started his career as a teacher and advanced in his track over the time by working at several life experience degree accredited programs.