I got my bachelor's degree at the University of North Texas (which was North Texas State when I was attending). During that time, I had a psychology professor who would suddenly stop at various points in his lecture and do something random and unrelated to the topic at hand like tell a story about when he was a kid, make some off the wall comment, take a few dance steps, and so forth. We never knew what he was going to do, or when he was going to do it; he may not even have known himself. I do know one thing; it made me pay attention to what he was doing because I never wanted to miss the random act(s).
Hence, the message of this post -- do something unpredictable when in the midst of teaching students. I adopted that tactic in my teaching years ago and find it to be a great way to give students' brains a chance to pause and then refocus on the task at hand. As you know I am at Purdue. Just the other day I started a chant in my large lecture class of 200 students with, "Give me a P!" Give me a "U!" I am certain that the kids thought I was going to have them spell "Purdue!" Not so, I had them give me another P, then another P, then a Y. I asked them, "What's that spell?" They yelled, "Puppy!?" To which I replied in a very sweet loving way, "Aw, aren't puppies cute?" "Who doesn't love puppies?" I then went back to my lecture on customer service. The look on the faces of the students was priceless, a sort of "What the heck just happened?" They will also pay attention for the next random act as I did long ago in that psychology teacher's class.
Try this technique, it works. The students in my classes look, as I once did long ago, for me to do something unpredictable and so are tricked into focusing more on the rest of what I say as a result. Besides, it is a great way to punctuate a presentation in a fun and unique manner and provide a bit of a mental rest so that the students can then go back to learning about the topic at hand.
Have a great weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment