March 7, 2006
Take an Activity Break
Hot on the heels of my posting about how to make lectures more permeable and interactive, Richard Reis' wonderful resource, Tomorrow's Professor, has posted a very helpful essay advocating the use of "Activity Breaks" to enhance and increase class participation.
Since the attention span of almost all students is between 10 and 20 minutes, you can expect to lose most of your students if you lecture for 50 minutes straight. Even professionals fall victim to the "my eyes glaze over" syndrome. Not only do students tune out once that "dead" period is reached, the energy level of the class also flags. The solution might be to structure a 50-minute class something like this: a mini-lecture including an introduction, an activity break, a second mini-lecture, an activity break and finally a third mini-lecture, including a wrap-up. The mini-lectures contain an introduction, a body and a closing, similar to a straight lecture except they are shorter.
Great advice! Using mini-lecture methods to "bookend" an activity is a great way to think about how to structure a class. I often intuitively do this in writing classes, but I'm going to try to more actively apply this method to my content-based courses in literature, as well.
Breaks -- whether for activities or just to break up a multi-hour course -- are imperative, I think. Even plays have intermissions. Sometimes I'll ask students to do something clever during a break and give them a longer break to accomplish it (like in my poetry classes, I'll say -- "take your break outdoors today, and write down every smell you encounter" -- or "go write a poem that describes a 'secret place' you find on campus, but don't mention it by name; then come back to class and read your poem and we'll see if we can guess where it is"). Students really get a charge out of the change of pace and the moment of "escape" from not only the classroom but the monotony of routine.
And by a "charge" I don't just mean having fun. Let's call it a learning "recharge" instead.
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Comments
Great idea. As a student in a creative writing class I often fell victim to stuffy room syndrome. I felt more tired and less creative in those lecture classes. Any chance to write outside next to a tree is refreshing and creatively rewarding.
I'm going to take issue with this. Since the attention span of almost all students is between 10 and 20 minutes, Any sources for that? I mean, that just sounds off the wall. What about controlling the variables? My first reaction was "that's the attention span of someone who is being bored". So, instead of blaming and patronizing students, how about making lectures more interesting? How about learning some basics of public speaking and presentations so you know how to keep people listening attentively? Even a fascinating lecture content-wise can suffer from poor, lifeless delivery (and vice-versa). So, why are "activity breaks" necessary again?
"Now, I know you don't enjoy being in jail, but you have to be here, so we're going to play some games to help pass the time a little more pleasantly...."