Acknowledging Moves
Sometimes students are inattentive for reasons that have nothing to do with what’s going on in class or how skillful the teacher is. Some outside event is weighing on them (or exciting them)—for example, their best friend refused to sit next to them on the bus this morning, their parents have just separated, they are playing in a championship game that afternoon, or hail the size of golf balls starts falling outside the classroom window.
Merely acknowledging out loud to students your understanding of the distrac- tion—or what’s on their mind—can enable them to pay more attention in class. It is validating (and rare) to have one’s feelings really heard, and simply ac- knowledging those feelings can facilitate attention. Here are a few examples:
p Example 1: There is a big game scheduled tonight. The teacher says, “I know you’re excited about the hockey game tonight, especially with three
Video: Piquing Students’ Interest
Move Sounds or Looks Like 10. Circulation The teacher physically moves around the room while facilitating large-group learning
experiences. 11. Wait time Explaining to students in advance that “think time” will always follow a question that is
posed and consistently inserting three to five seconds or more of silence after posing a question to the whole group, allowing thinking time for all to process before any one responds. Or once a student has been called on, the teacher stays out of the way for at least five seconds so the student has the opportunity to construct a response. During the silence, the other students are induced to focus on that question silently in anticipation that it might be referred to them next.
12. Eye contact The teacher makes frequent eye-to-eye contact with all students in a group. 13. Freedom from visual and auditory distraction
Arranging the room so that small-group work takes place facing a corner or away from the main visual field in the room, or so that instructional or quiet work areas are separated from active and noisy areas. Alternatively, you direct the class, “Close your eyes and just listen.”
Table 5.2 Thirteen Alerting Moves (continued)
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star players right here in our midst. But I’m asking you all to put that on the shelf for a while because today’s review is very important.”
p Example 2: Seven-year-old Sadé is distracted during reading group. Her glance shifts repeatedly to the place she left to come to group (a display of dolls from foreign lands that she was arranging). In a flash, the teacher sizes this up and, knowing that Sadé realizes that lunch will immediately follow reading, figures out that the child is feeling that she’ll never be able to finish arranging the dolls. After lunch can seem like forever to a seven-year-old, so the teacher makes an acknowledging move: “Sadé, I know it’s important to you to get all the dolls neatly arranged. You can devote yourself to that right before we go to lunch, I promise. Only now you need to work with us on this reading because we won’t be doing this later. I’ll make sure you get back there.” Getting the dolls arranged may not seem important from an adult point of view, but such seemingly trivial matters can be consuming to children and block their involvement unless teachers perceive and respond.
Acknowledging out loud to students your understanding of the distraction— or what’s on their mind—can enable them to pay more attention in class.
Table 5.3 Nine Enlisting Moves
Move Sounds or Looks Like
1. Voice variety The teacher varies his speaking tone, pitch, volume, or inflection to emphasize points and add interest.
2. Gesture Using hand or body movements to emphasize points or add interest.
3. Piquing student’s curiosity
“What do you suppose could possibly have caused Alexander to behave in such a bizarre way?”
4. Suspense With her back to the students, the teacher puts on a costume, a face, a wig, or something else; ten to fifteen seconds elapse while the students wait to see what the costume represents.
5. Challenge “This next one will fool all of you!”
6. Making student a helper
“Jim, will you hold up those two test tubes for the group to see, please?” (Jim’s attention has been wandering.)
7. Props Using physical objects related to the content (for example, the take-apart human torso or hats to represent different vocations). 8. Personification, or attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects
“So, Sodium says to Chloride, ‘How’d ya like to hook up?’” or “Now, if Mr. W were to walk through the door right now and look for things that started with his sound, what would he find to make him feel at home?”
9. Connecting with student’s fantasies
“So the NFL drafts Ben and signs him for three years at $28 million a year. Which tax bracket is that likely to place him in?”
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p Example 3: Perceiving that Marvin is concerned about something, the teacher makes this acknowledging move: “Are you afraid you’ll miss your turn at the listening station, Marvin?” Marvin nods. “Look, take your time, and do this paper well. I’ll see to it that you get your turn as soon as you’re done, even if we’ve passed you on the sign-up sheet.”
p Example 4: Sometimes the teacher just needs to ask, “Brenda, what’s on your mind? You don’t seem with us this morning.” Further probing and ac- tive listening may or may not release this attention block. However, some- times just talking about what’s on the student’s mind, without any solution from the teacher, will be unburdening enough to permit the student to re-enter here-and-now tasks.
Winning Moves
Winning moves, listed in Table 5.4, are similar to enlisting moves in that they are positive and tend to attract rather than force students’ attention to the learn- ing experience. However, we have distinguished winning moves from enlisting moves because winning moves focus students on the teacher, whereas enlist- ing moves focus students’ attention more on the activity or the content. This is where teachers use their personality to mediate attention.
Table 5.4 Five Winning Moves
Move Sounds or Looks Like
1. Encouragement Prompting students’ ongoing work, usually by means of voice quality and facial expression: “Keep going, you’re getting it.” A student says, “I don’t know . . .” and the teacher responds, “Sure you do. What’s one?”
2. Enthusiasm “That’s a fascinating topic for a paper, Nikki! Wait ‘til you see what’s in this Web site!”
3. Praise Specific comments that acknowledge effort a student has invested and the concrete impact it is having: “You really worked hard on that, Priya, and it shows everywhere!”
4. Humor Joking in a positive, supportive manner, without sarcasm, that is mutually enjoyed by the students.
5. Dramatizing
Acting out or performing material related to the lesson, or directing students to dramatize experiences. Here the teacher switches into role and speaks a line of dialogue through the persona of a character whose identity he has assumed, even if just for a single sentence: “Well, here I go into the den of smiling vipers.” (The teacher has become newly elected President Abraham Lincoln entering his first cabinet meeting where all the officers think they’d be a better president than he and are in fact plotting to get rid of him.)
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