You have discovered the benefits of being a flexible teacher and reading your students. This allows you to insert the right activity when you lose them to bring them back.
We change it up often, going from lecture to hands on frequently during class time. Our class is a four hour class so there is no way anyone could lecture or listen for that amount of time. I also have the student help with the lecture when we are working on terms or various readings from the book and interject with real life experiences to make more interesting whenever possible.
As an instructor, I will refocus my students by first allowing them to take a break and then as they return to class, I then allow a student to demonstrate the task that we learned. This will include the steps taken and including the why and how for the demonstrated task! I then allow the other students to ellaborate on the deomstration as well as what could be done to improve as well as what was done correctly!
I like to bring in people that my students do not know and have them do vitals, etc. on them. It is more like a real life setting. I use many family members and friends and am never short on volunteers.
This is an excellent idea as it causes the students to interact with strangers, which will be their job once they graduate.
During long spans of hands-on content, they first thing I use is taking a good old-fashioned break, usually around 10 minutes. We are generally working on massage, so I make sure they are moving around the body and not staying on one part of the body for too long. I will also show them different techniques to use on each part of the body so it does not become monotonous for them or the person they are working on. Sometimes we will even do hands-on first, then lecture, then go back to hands-on.
Dana, the variety in your class is part of your students success. Keep up the good work.
Some massages last 90 mins. In that case we call the time off in 15 min blocks and we play soft music during the routine. The calling time let's the students know where they are in the routine; this forces them to stay focused and on task. The soft music calms the students and puts to sleep those on the table. This is useful because the person on the table will not distract the student working. This makes the time-span seem shorter than the 90 mins leads it to seem.
Paul
I appreciate all your positive suggestions, Paul. All in this course will benefit from your ideas. Thanks again!
Teaching Physical Therapist Assistant students, one of the refocusing strategies I use is getting up and exercising. As we exercise the students are pointing put and discusing the muscles their origin, their insertion and innervation and sometimes primary funtion. This way on days with long lecture hours we are up and moving around for stimulation. We have been outside to do this activity also.
I like the ABG card game. ABG's are something that students seem to grasp right away but tend to forget 3 months down the road when they are not using the information daily. I could even encourage them to make their own version and play it during their study groups.
This activity can be used with a variety of different content.
Laurie, I love that you have them up and moving while identifying anatomy and physiology, that makes it a two for one successful teaching strategy. Thanks for sharing!
As a Massage Therapy instuctor, I get them on the table to be worked on
I usually only do clinicals, and generally don't encounter this situation too often in the clinical setting.
However, if I was faced with this dilemma, I might consider taking short breaks and have short, creative review sessions after each break which reinforce the content being taught.
I like the idea of jeopardy-style games for candy prizes and handing out puzzles related to the hands on content.
As a massage instructor, your content lends itself to immediate application, which is an advantage over other areas.
Clinical teaching requires other skills and activities. I hope this course helped make you think of some new ones.
Grouping students and challenging them with competitive games are always successful. We have used Pictionary, Jeopardy, power points with questions. I always start a class with telling them what we will accomplish and demonstrate and end the class with reviewing what we did. This can take some time and keeps reinforcing the objectives and outcomes.
Reviewing at the end must give your students a sense of accomplishment.
I like using a jeopardy game power point.
It is helpful to spark interest and maintain
focus.
