C. James Wong James.Wong@sjcd.edu San Jacinto College South Campus, - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

C. James Wong James.Wong@sjcd.edu San Jacinto College South Campus, Houston, TX

What is the biggest distraction in your classroom?  Birds outside the classroom  Students mentally planning what to do after class  Students' cell phones  Other distractions not listed here

Characteristics of Students in Developmental Education  Traditional and non-traditional students  Frontal lobe not fully developed until they are in their mid- 20s (Sowell et al., 2003)  Did not pass Texas placement tests to take college level courses  Developmental English & Math, College Success, ESOL courses  Less or NOT motivated to learn in the classroom: body language and facial expression without eye contact  Many lack study skills and study habits  Everyone has a phone!

Ten strategies to bring students back to learning!

1. Cell Phone Policy on Syllabus  Pros: set the expectation on day one to eliminate future dispute  Cons: rules are meant to be broken. Students start breaking the policy as early as day one! It’s difficult to break a habit established in other classes or settings.

2. Connecting the Dots Business etiquette, work place, job competitive  Pros: prepare students to be job ready by starting to learn about business etiquette and job competitiveness.  Cons: difficult to look forward as business etiquette and job competitiveness are irrelevant to less mature students who are not thinking about their future yet.

3. Conduct Research on Attention Define “FULL attention.” Primary and secondary sources of information  Pros: Demystify the misconception and self-discover personal attentional ability. Works well in a reading/writing class for a research paper.  Cons: may not fit in curriculum in other disciplines than English.

4. Ongoing Friendly Reminders  Pros: Trying to keep a friendly atmosphere  Cons: Endless and disrupts the flow of the lesson; students may feel offended. Tom and Jerry

5. Negative Reinforcement (Penalty)  Pros: may work for a short term.  Cons: may result a negative relationship between students and instructors. Tom and Jerry: playing cops?

6. Positive Reinforcement (Incentive) To earn an open-book quiz in the next class  Pros: To achieve a common goal, students develop self- discipline, self-responsibility, peer pressure, peer monitoring.  Cons: may result negative relationships among students; more record keeping.

7. Graded Active Learning Activities Graded pair/independent work before/after short lectures (+ve reinforcement)  Pros: active learning activities before/after short lectures for practice, better retention, & formative/informal assessment of understanding. Help students focus on learning.  Cons: Instructor needs to have additional tasks for students who finish before others. Time-consuming to grade daily in-class work.

8 . Short Lectures: Avoid “Give & Go” or “Sit & Sleep” Notes taking for a grade (+ve reinforcement). Include lectures in tests/exams.  Pros: additional materials to study; important study and work skill/habit (many don’t know when & how to take/organize notes)  Cons: Can students listen and write at once? Time consuming to grade daily notes.

9. Keep Learning Activities Short with Surprises  Pros: Keep students engaged. Pace the class so that more advanced students won’t get bored while waiting for others in a longer activity.  Cons: Not all learning activities are short. Some students need more time than others.

10. Use the Phone for Learning Purpose Calendar, Remind, Twitter, learning apps like Kahoot! and StudyBlue.  Pros: Teach students to use the smartphone in an academically smart way: reminders, alerts, calendar, poll, reflections/interactions, flashcards, other educational games/apps  Cons: Multitasking will happen as students believe they can! Time-consuming to record/grade daily participation using the phone. Digital Divide.

This list can go on and on … Intentional intervention is pertinent to help students focus on learning in the classroom!

Thank You!