Willy Wood Extra Credit

I listened to Willy Wood's podcast on attention. I really enjoyed the podcast and learned a great deal about things I can do to get my students attention and keep their attention well. One particular thing I learned that really interested me was that there are several students now that don't necessarily have ADHD, but they show symptoms of it because of how distracting our environment is. The educational environment holds so many distractions such as other students, technology, sounds, outdoor activities, and etc. It is such a struggle for teachers to be the most important thing going on in the students life in order to get them to learn the material they are teaching.
Another thing about the podcast that I really enjoyed and learned a lot about, is that two main things that take precedence before whatever it is that we may have to say are the basic needs; such as eating, sleeping, breathing, etc. and sexual desires; such as who is in their class that they may have a crush on. Competing with those two strong attention grabbers can be really difficult.
I also learned that attention grabbers can't remain the same throughout the whole school year because students will grow immune to them. They will get bored of whatever the signal or sound may be, and they will begin to ignore it. They may react to it just out of habit, but they may not truly be paying attention any longer.
Willy also discussed several different ways to get the students attention and maintain the students attention. It is very important to get them moving around, relating the information to them personally, using technology, using novelty, incorporating music, having individual work time, and several others. It is important to remember not to lecture for the entire time, but rather to give the students time to be active and work on things on their own because they definitely can not keep their attention focused on you for the entire class period.
Several things that Willy mentioned were in the book as well. He mentioned that it is very important to encode the information in a variety of ways so that the students can recall the information more easily. It is also very important to make the information relate to them emotionally as well because those are some of the things that we remember the most easily.
One of the last things that Willy mentioned that I really thought was interesting was that you should not have the students multitask on tasks that are very important to you. You need to be aware that the important information is being interrupted by the other things that you are asking them to do as well. The students will feel overloaded and lose focus on each particular item.
In conclusion, I was very happy that I listened to this podcast because I learned several techniques that I would like to apply in my classroom. I know that I have got to get the students attention and maintain their attention throughout my class period because that is the most important aspect of student learning. The student won't even begin to remember the information if it isn't something that interests them and grabs their attention.