Ways to Help Your Students Learn

An important factor in helping your students learn is getting them engaged in the material. There is a lot of competition for the student's attention in school, including making friends, finding a mate, hunger, thirst, the weather, classroom visitors, and avoiding embarrassment, failure or harm.

Educators should allow time for their students to become engrossed in material that is relevant and meaningful to them in order to become engaged. Material being learned is more likely to get students' attention if it is specific, novel and not bland or boring. Content is more likely to becoming meaningful if it can be related to prior learning, it is learned in context and if a learner can be both active and reflective with it.

The power of linking new learning to prior knowledge can't be emphasized enough. Prior knowledge is the anchor onto which new learning is attached. While some students' prior knowledge is conflicting or unreliable, it is also very resistant to change. Teachers have to work with whatever prior knowledge their students have rather than trying to erase or "fix" it.

Students must be able to hear the teacher. Classrooms should have good acoustics. At my school, many of the teachers wear microphones to ensure the children can hear them. Any children with hearing deficiencies should be seated close to the teacher.

Students who get enough sleep and do not use drugs or alcohol are more easily able to engage in learning. These are things which are largely beyond the educator's control. However, education about sleep requirements of children and drug abuse may benefit both parents and students.

Naturally, students with attention deficits have a hard time engaging in learning. As a teacher, I have often coordinated with parents to be sure that any children who need to take medication for this disorder receive their doses on a timely schedule. Those with central auditory processing disorders have similar difficulties. At my school, we have a program called HSAS which can "rewire" the brain so that processing becomes more rapid.

Low glucose levels also affect a student's ability to engage. At our school, children from low-income families can have free breakfast and lunch and other students may purchase meals. In addition, my students have a snack each morning to prevent a mid-morning brain slump. There are also snacks available from the office and from the school kitchen for those children who need them.

Students must feel safe before they are even open to learning. Occasionally students fear physical attacks in school, but they are also not able to attend to learning if they are concerned with the more commonly occurring teasing and bullying. A school must be a community of respect with zero tolerance for this type of behavior to benefit all learners.

Students may not be engaged in learning at the same time they are "making meaning". This is a reflective thought process which cannot occur simulateously with attending to what is being taught. This means a school day cannot consist of non-stop learning/teaching. Activities that may be considered a waste by those outside the school system can actually be productive for the student
who is making meaning. Eric Jensen, author of the book "Teaching with the Brain in Mind", call these activities "settling time". Settling time includes naps, lunch, taking a walk, listening to instrumental music, classroom chores, recess, and paired time, among other activities.

People of all ages have limited attention spans. The general rule I've learned is that a person's attention span is, in minutes, roughly equal to their age. For example, a 7 year old has about a 7 minute attention span. Likewise, a 15 year old has about a 15 minute attention span. Teachers can deal with attention span limitations using many of the same activities listed in the paragraph above to keep their students "fresh" and ready to learn.

A wise teacher will use a variety of teaching methods to deliver classroom curriculum. Using a combination of methods which includes hands-on activities (such as building models and doing experiments), discussion, videos, brainstorming, visual aids, pencil and paper activities and, of course, (that good old stand-by) lecturing will ensure that all your learners have curriculum delivered to them in the way that best suits each one of them at least some of the time.

Sources:

http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/comteach.htm

Teaching with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen, Copyright 2005, ASCD, Alexandria, VA

http://www.spring-ford.net/staff/dbick/attention%20span.htm