when you have students who "just don't listen"  
line decor
  
line decor
 
 
 
 

 
 
Head on Desk
Why?
The student may be tired and fatigued for a variety of social and emotional reasons resulting in increased difficulty maintaining attention to what is happening within the classroom.

So?
Implications

This demonstrates that the student is not listening and attending to the classroom proceedings.  Having their head on the desk would mean that information would be less likely to be processed and may lead to:
  • difficulty following instructions
  • difficulty learning new material
  • will perform poorly on given tasks
  • won’t engage in group activities
Now what?
Strategies
  • Check vision, hearing or any other relevent specific disorders.
  • liaise with parents about student’s fatigue during the school day (perhaps address sleeping patterns, extra-curricular activities, diet, health etc..)
  • break up sessions with interactive activities that require movement (breaks to stretch, jog around the room etc..)
  • whole body listening
  • use visual stimuli to engage attention inside the classroom
  • use your intonation to draw attention to important points (vary tone, increase enthusiasm in voice, etc.)
  • have visual or tactile aids for each student to enhance the engagement in the task
  • vary information presentation (use videos, tapes, and other media to present information to students)
 
 

 

MORE SPECIFIC DISORDERS
The behaviours and strategies listed on the CALM website describe an "average student" who just doesn't seem to listen. It is important firstly to ensure more specific disorders are not the causal factor.

The following is a checklist of specific difficulties a student could be facing:

 
 

About Us | References
©2007 CALM in the Classroom

School of Human Communication Sciences, La Trobe University (Barnes, Block, Cheung, Harker, Moore, Nguyen, Swift)

Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Callinan)