Arrest Attention

Without attention, effective teaching cannot take place, and without effective teaching, learning cannot take place either. This underscores the fact that teachers must find a way to arrest students’ attention for effective lesson delivery. I'm sure you are aware that students day dream. They could be quiet but their minds have wandered off. It is your duty to make sure that this doesn’t happen. You need to find lesson hooks that immediately arrest the attention of your students. Such hooks must have educational relevance to the topic of the day.

 I am a fan of arresting attention because I know that without it, learning cannot take place. I also know that you cannot ask for attention if you don’t know how to arouse it or arrest it. Dear teacher, it is an educational crime to teach without instructional materials. It is also dangerous to continue teaching when you observe that attention is beginning to dwindle. As such you must have a bag of tricks or attention sustainers that you rely on as you go. One of your tricks is an activity planned within your lesson. Or an experiment that involves the students moving from passive attention to active and engaged attention in the task of learning. Arresting attention shouldn’t be a problem if you are intentional. You only need to see your lesson through the eyes of the students. You need to think and act in line with the world of the students. You must be willing to speak their language in order to arrest their attention. When you try the unconventional and sometimes seemingly ridiculous, you will be amazed at how much attention students will give you.