Thinking Man's Corner

Article Written By: Leo H.

Surprisingly, in many of the classes I’ve taught at the entry level (BLETC), there are students who really have no desire to be in the class. They attended simply because firing a “qualifying” score twice is one of the mandates associated with successful completion of the Basic Law Enforcement Training Course. Most of these students have difficulty performing well on the range as they did not initially acquire sufficient understanding of proper technique. They are prime examples of the adage, “Practice makes permanent.” Obviously, it would be a better plan to listen and watch carefully in order to ensure the technique is being “programmed” perfectly. Therefore, “Perfect practice makes perfect” becomes the better axiom to follow.

Conversely, similar issues arise when conducting mandatory in-service training classes. The student is required to report to a class they may have no desire to attend.  They are forced into the student role following working a shift the night before; or on their scheduled off day; or because they were sent by a supervisor. To compound the issue, they arrive complete with a laptop, tablet, or Smartphone… ready to watch videos, visit folks on Facebook or otherwise surf the web while you attempt to provide valid information to the rest o the class. Sadly, very few attend with an actual desire to walk away with new or refreshed knowledge. Maybe Pooh was right when he said, “Sometime, the more you think, the more there is no real answer.”

A recent article I read spoke of a Canadian research project where the brain activity of 2000 participants was studied. The result was the determination that the average human attention span is now approximately twelve seconds. The attention span of a goldfish is said to be nine seconds. Interesting.

On a more positive note, Microsoft has found the millennial to be capable of multitasking more efficiently than previous generations. They seem to need less information to process what is important and commit it to memory. They have a tendency to front load their attention and have more intermittent bursts of high attention. If we consider this, it becomes increasingly apparent why we lose students in the classroom. A slide full of bulleted information tends to blur into nothingness at about ten seconds. Presto… no more student.

Learning/Teaching requires planning. The teacher must harness the multitasking capabilities of the student while providing new sparks of interest gaining material within relatively short timespans. The use multiple slides, attention grabbing imagery and applied technology to relate to a single point, rather than droning on and on while reading a slide that contains a hundred or more words, may be a more efficient method to ensuring student involvement. Asking direct questions (have a prepared list – think teaching points), thus making students instantly accountable for the presented information, also serves to enhance the attention process.

Student interaction is necessary to adequately build a strong knowledge base. Therefore, it is important for the instructor to understand that your students may each have a different mode of teaching preference (visual, auditory, read/write and kinesthetic – see www.vark-learn.com ). Structuring your class in the method YOU prefer to receive new information in will only reach a portion of your students. When planning your class, take the time to visit each learning preference in some fashion during the presentation of new material. I’ve found a method which works for me is to use approximately twenty minutes per hour to develop new material. Every five minutes, use a different instructional method to stress the point.

Make sure you have handouts for the read/write folks, or they won’t hear anything you say while they are trying to copy every word on every slide (I’ve used Dropbox or Google Drive to provide links to the material rather than creating tons of paper-based handouts). Asking questions can get your auditory and kinesthetic folks involved. Use graphics for your visual people (remember, a picture is worth a thousand words). Don’t just push to get the material presented. Read your audience and provide breaks as you see they are necessary.

There is a lot of great technology out there. There are several interactive products which can be purchased from Turning Technologies (www.turningtechnologies.com) that are extremely beneficial. They allow you to engage and interact with every student in your classroom. The statistics they offer suggest that use of response technology can improve retention of new material as much as 40% while providing an increase in measured proficiency as high as 11%. A lower tech option, which uses your audiences’ mobile phones to collect responses, can be found at the Poll Everywhere website (www.polleverywhere.com).

What if learning was about thinking? Would we teach different if we didn’t lecture the answers and, instead, provided questions which lead the student to find their own answer? While I am definitely not a scholar of the Socratic Method, I believe there is validity in the need to consider utilization of a modified version when teaching the millennial. Where you can provide the path that leads to their personal discovery of the solution, learning will absolutely take place.

When using the Socratic Method, you should develop questions in three separate categories: exploratory, spontaneous, and focused.

• Exploratory – how much do the students already know?
• Spontaneous – best used where student interest in the topic of discussion exists.
  • Have students explore beliefs and assumptions
  • Provides an avenue for self-correction through reflection
  • Excellent tool when an important issue is raised or when a discussion requires clarification.
• Focused – content is narrowed to specific issues which forces the student to evaluate their personal knowledge of a subject.

However you choose to involve your student, it is best to have a plan before you hit the classroom. With today’s student, you have a very short time frame in order to establish the relevancy of your material. You can, literally, lose control of your class faster than a Goldfish thinks.

“Wilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death when a speaker does that.” Mark Twain

Semper Optimum