All categories/Teaching and training
Classroom delivery · Level Advanced · Classroom Classroom Attention
Attention lost: three moves
Halfway through and phones are out.
Prompt
Three things in class: get them doing, surface misunderstanding, make feedback specific. Being eloquent is not the goal.
Task: Halfway through and phones are out.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- format and time of day
- content density
- who is in the room
- venue
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- change pace with a hands-on task
- change participation without embarrassing them
- cut one abstract passage
- afternoon and online need different tactics
[Process]
1. Read the room before following the plan
2. Surface misunderstanding with questions
3. Feedback on behaviour and next step, never on the person
4. Separate tasks by level
5. Leave two minutes for their recap
[Output]
Reading the room, questions, feedback, tiers, close.
[Do not]
- Never embarrass anyone
- Never 'this is so simple'
- Do not skip practice to keep pace
- 'Any questions' is not interactionWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- format and time of day
- content density
- who is in the room
- venue
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- change pace with a hands-on task
- change participation without embarrassing them
- cut one abstract passage
- afternoon and online need different tactics