Group items tagged

After analyzing the data produced by undergraduates who wore the glasses during lectures, professor David Rosengrant concluded that it was not the case, as many teachers believe, that students were most engaged for the first 15 minutes or so of class, after which their attention gradually slacked off. Rather, he said, student engagement ebbed and flowed over the course of the 70-minute lecture, and spiked whenever the professor used humor, stood close to the student, or talked about material that was not included in the Power Point presentation projected on a screen at the front of the room. Rosengrant also determined that cell phones and the web — especially Facebook — were the greatest obstacles to maintaining students’ engagement in the classroom.

“Sometimes I think that we, as teachers, are so eager to get to the answers that we do not devote sufficient time to developing the question,” notes Dan Willingham, a cognitive scientist at the University of Virginia. “But it’s the question that piques people’s interest. Being told an answer doesn’t do anything for you.” Take the information you want your audience to know by the end and frame a question that will direct your listeners toward that answer.