Teachers have the delicate task of balancing ‘edutainment’ with deep learning through meaningful engagement with prescribed curriculum content. Picture: Pexels
The modern day learner presents differently to school going children fifteen years ago.
The smart phone and internet connected generation is more impulsive, more egocentric and wired for quick, exciting and novel activities, such as they experience online and when gaming.
With dopamine flowing through their neurological system through all these activities, a lesson in the classroom can be boring, unfulfilling and laborious. Hence, they act out and are disruptive in the classroom, to the extent that they may sabotage learning for their peers.
Teachers have the delicate task of balancing ‘edutainment’ with deep learning through meaningful engagement with prescribed curriculum content. Good teaching practice goes a long way to mitigating the chances of rowdy or uncooperative behaviours.
Alison Scott, Executive Principal at Bellavista School has the following advice for high-school teachers:
Establish reciprocity before starting the lesson, making sure the learners are ready to engage, physically and cognitively. Be clear about the skills or knowledge that the learners need to acquire, and explain how the lesson is going to run.
Help the learners answer the question “Why do I need to learn this?” before they have breath to ask it.
Explicitly connect what they know and where you hope to lead their learning. This can be achieved by establishing their prior knowledge, linking the subject matter to other learning areas and bridging the learning experience to their real life.
When relevance is established, learners of all ages participate better and disruptive behaviour can be averted.
Establishing classroom routines so that learners know what to expect each lesson can be helpful in maintaining good discipline, especially for classes seen only once or twice a week. Disorganisation that allows for periods of dormancy as learners wait for materials or the teacher to get ready, or other lapses in active engagement, is a recipe for ill-discipline.
Teachers should also commit their complete availability to the learners in front of them; for example, not using a phone or answering email in the lesson, and expect the same from the class.
Aim to be in the classroom before the start of the lesson to welcoming learners in.
Greet each individual by name, ensuring that they know they belong, are seen and expected. Addressing each person warmly sets the tone for communication for the rest of the lesson.
One routine should be an expectation that work begins on entry to the venue. Grabbing learners’ attention with an intriguing object, a video playing, a quick brain based activity, a new floor layout or a crazy prop stimulates curiosity and engages learners immediately.
Beyond this purpose, ‘soft start’ activities can help a teacher to consolidate previous learning, quickly assess what information learners have retained and determine if they’ve done their homework.
A pre-established routine for what learners should do when they’ve completed a task can also be helpful. On paper or online, have a repository of cognitive game based activities designed to further develop learners’ skills in your learning area.
The seating plan with strategic placement according to peer interactions should be flexible and modified as needed.
Learners should be familiar with the expectation that the teachers determines where they are placed and that this may change frequently. An active teacher who moves around all the time, from desk to desk or group to group, ensures immediate feedback and mediation towards individual accuracy and participation.
Teachers on hand can affirm a feeling of competence,which every person needs to sustain motivation for new learning. Teacher availability offers learners confidence that any feelings of challenge will be met with close instructional support and is key to academic success.
Often learners behave poorly because the pace of the lesson is either overwhelming or slow, the lesson is too difficult or too easy or the text in use is inaccessible because of reading age.
Success begets success and differentiated activity choices will allow each individual to choose an output task that best suits their strengths.
Offering options to show their skills or knowledge in different ways does not diminish from the content acquisition or comprehension.
Standards aren’t dropped by allowing diverse expressions of mastery and this strategy may offer the novelty that you need to keep the learners’ positive and regulated.
Learners can present a poster, make a short video, write an essay or complete a quick quiz to show understanding. Materials appropriate to their reading ability as well as alternative methods of recording, such as writing frames, drawings or flow charts will mitigate some of the barriers to learning that they experience and foster willing participation.
Not all learners who disrupt lessons are struggling scholastically. Providing different tasks or materials for learners who are ahead of the class is important to secure their attention too.
It is crucial that they don’t simply receive ‘more work’ when they finish a task quickly as this leads to boredom. Instead, they need challenging tasks or projects aligned with their high interests.
Ironically, disruptive or avoidant learners themselves are the best source of suggestions for what they would respond to best.
With due mutual respect, and preferably privately, discuss what they find challenging or boring in the classroom and the ways in which you can assist them. They are often surprisingly insightful and may appreciate the concern, resulting in improved behaviour by nature of the relationship you have set up.
For more information, visit www.bellavista.org.za
IOL Education
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