education

Thirteen Alerting Moves Move Sounds or Looks Like 1. Startle Doing something out of the ordinary or surprising to capture attention. Noticing that attention is wandering as a group listens to a recording, the teacher abruptly hits the Stop button and pops a question: “Why do you suppose Jefferson felt that way about Hamilton?” Place […]

Desisting Moves Desisting moves carry the message, “Stop what you are doing and shift your at- tention elsewhere,” or “Get with it.” They are most applicable when students are drifting off course. All the moves in this category are ways of telling students that they are doing something we want them to stop doing. Some

MOVES TO FACILITATE STUDENT ATTENTION Skillful teachers lay the groundwork for focusing student attention by system- atically incorporating the “Attention” principles and guidelines into the every- day fabric of classroom life. There are a wide range of in-the-moment moves that a teacher might use to capture, maintain, and recapture or refocus stu- dent attention. Teachers

Building in Learning Downtime Humans are natural meaning-seeking organisms, but excessive input can conflict with that process. . . . You can either have your learner’s attention or they can be making meaning, but never both at the same time. The brain needs time to “go inside” and link the present with the past and

Using Physical Movement When the brain is fully engaged it is more efficient and effective. Vigor- ous physical activity is believed to increase blood flow to the brain. Cross lateral movement that works both sides of the body evenly and involves coordinated motion of both eyes, both ears, both hands, and both feet activates both

Balancing Challenge Optimal learning occurs when there is a balance between the level of challenge and existing knowledge or skills. If the challenge is greater than the skills, it can create anxiety; if the skills are greater than the challenge, boredom is likely. This suggests that getting students into optimal learning states requires assessing the

Benefits of Laughter Laughter has been shown to boost the body’s production of neurotrans- mitters critical for alertness and memory. Some studies have shown that having fun and pleasant experiences improve the functioning of the body’s immune system for three days. (Fry, 1997, as cited in Jensen, 2000, p. 125) Teachers, like everyone else, need

Optimal Emotional State All learning is state dependent: the physiological, emotional, postural, and psychological state learners are in will mediate content. And these states are related to the chemical “flavor of the moment” in the brain. Chemicals can be too high, resulting in hyper or stressed states; chemi- cals can be too low, yielding drowsiness.

BUILDING AN ATTENTION REPERTOIRE Attention level is determined by the interaction of various factors: sen- sory input (sources of information such as textbooks, videos, field trips, etc.); data’s intensity or perceived importance; and the brain’s “chemical flavor” of the moment. (Jensen, 2000, p. 123) That teachers need to build a repertoire of ways to capture

describe ways in which teachers keep students alert In this chapter, we describe ways in which teachers keep students alert by p doing things in the moment that are surprising or out of the ordinary (like breaking into song to give directions when student attention has drifted or randomizing calling-on patterns so a student never