Last week one of my classes was difficult to manage. I was dealing with resistance due to distaste for the subject area, loss of attention, group dynamics, lack of understanding and inadequate equipment ( some with no pencil or paper). Although I pushed through, my blood pressure rose and I had passing moments of feeling helpless before this morass of learning obstacles. What to do? The next day, I decided to begin with an upbeat, positive attitude, and an attempt to connect with their experience outside the classroom. The tone changed from resistance to cooperation. Could it be that my demeanour the day before was giving off a distancing kind of aura?
It also occurs to me that I need to address the results of the Multiple Intelligence survey I did with them a month ago. The vast majority are primarily wired for bodily kinesthetic learning. They have got to move and feel engaged with movement, rhythm and reconfiguarations of desks...that sort of thing. This week, I intend to keep the students moving...Your comments?
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In response to your blog and how the students responded to you that day, there are a few things that came to mind.
ReplyDeleteAfter completing Session 1 of our Philosophy class this past Wednesday, I thought that perhaps, based on your “Subconscious Beliefs”, you might have assumed that the students would never like the subject you were teaching, and so your attempt to engage them from the beginning wasn’t even an option. Therefore, you may have automatically sent off an aura to the students, interpreted to them as a subject that is “distasteful”.
The second thought was perhaps when you realized the students were not focusing on the subject you were teaching, you might have assumed it was because they did not understand the material, when in reality they just needed to be engaged.
I had another thought. I do not know what your week was like at that time in 2009, but if it was anything like mine this week, you may have been giving off an aura with your students, which stemmed from an outside situation. The students may have noticed a change in your body language, the clarity of the material you presented, your tone of voice, or anything along those lines. Besides, we are human with personal lives, and emotions, which can all impact the classroom from time to time.
It is interesting that the next day, after engaging the students with a more upbeat class, the students reacted differently. I am curious to know if you sang, or used some other talent of yours to get them to cooperate.
After you reviewed the MI survey and realized the majority of students needed to move around, what happened when you incorporated that part into their learning? I am athletic and feel the need to move around sometimes in the classroom. However, I have recently noticed that I need to move around a lot more in my current classroom just because it so cold.
S.R