Ever had a lesson you were THRILLED about? You loved it, it was fantastic, interesting, crisp, approachable and ... wonderful in every possible fashion. And yet, when you delivered that lesson, it flopped!
What gives? What was wrong with the lesson?
In reality, there was probably nothing wrong with the lesson. Sure, all can be improved, but the lesson wasn't the problem, the delivery was. It seems there exists an inverse relationship between how much I love a lesson and how well received it is. The more I love it, the more students hate it!
What it really boils down to is engagement. We are so sure that what we have to say will blow minds, that we forget our number one task ... making sure we are teaching students, not just covering material. We assume that because we find it interesting and fascinating, and because we had such a grand time putting the lesson together that they'll gravitate towards it.
But gravitate towards it in favor of what? What captures the attention of students? Drama at lunch, fights with family members, changes in weather, they might be tired from staying up and watching the new season of Stranger Things on Netflix ... we don't know. But whatever has their attention, we must wrestle it away.
In a normal lesson we are usually vigilant and on top of distractions and such. We work hard to make the lesson itself interesting. But in a lesson that needs no such adornments, we fail to sell it.
So regardless of whether you think it's great, they need to be sold on the fact!
There are a couple things that you can do, at any point in time, if they're not engaged. These work for average and poor lessons, not just the great ones that we hope will inspire a future generation of (whatever it is you teach).
Before I share with you three ways to quickly grab their attention, let me say that once you have it, you can just jump right back into the lesson. You'll have their attention, they'll not even notice that suddenly they're learning stuff!
My favorite, go-to, method of grabbing attention is with a quick, cheesy, usually Dad-Joke. I sometimes look up a bunch of them, print them off and have them at the ready. There are a few that I have on the ready at any given moment, but since I don't often tell them outside of the classroom, I forget.
Make it short and dumb, they'll be captured, even if they complain. Then, back to the lesson.
And with all of these, you just jump right into the attention getting performance, you can do it mid-sentence if you please.
The second method is with a quick story about something interesting. It can be that you wanted some cereal for breakfast and there was only a splash of milk left in the fridge! So you couldn't even have dry cereal, just slightly less than soggy junk -- How FRUSTRATING!?!?! Get some feedback and jump right back in.
The last method I use is direct. I simply tell them they're distracted and that they need to do their best to focus. I'll sell why (perhaps the material is dry but will be very important and interesting in context later, or some other reason). I'll share that I feel the same way, burned out and tired, but explain that we all have a job to do. "Let's just get through these next few parts and we're done for the day, if we do them well. If not, we'll have to revisit this again in the near future."
Whatever methods you use, mix it up. If you become too predictable with these they'll fail to gather attention. So, "Stay frosty," like the line in Aliens suggests.
Anyhow, I hope these are helpful tips. Just remember, no how great your lesson is, engagement is still the most important part of the lesson. Without it, they'll not learn anything!
