As a teacher or professor, you know how hard it is to get the attention of your scholars in the last session of the week. Smartphones, notebooks and tablets are great tools to connect the auditorium with the world, but often result in distractions during the lecture. Getting the attention of students in the last lecture before the exam is easy. We would like to help you with seven suggestions to get the full attention of your students in every lecture.





1. Interactive discussions

Instead of presenting to your students, you should try to start an interactive discussion in the beginning of your lecture. Ask your students about their opinions and motivate them to contribute. It is difficult to follow a one-way talk for longer than an hour. But being part of an interactive discussion makes it possible to add the own opinion. Moreover, it is easier to remember the things which you heard during a discussion than the content of an ordinary session.





2. Let your students start the lesson

If you want to make sure that your students come prepared to your lecture, let them start the introduction with a summary of today’s readings. As an alternative, you can ask questions and give bonus points to the best answers. Overall, the start into the session should not be too serious but it should motivate your students to prepare for the lesson.





3. A lecture in the sun

During the summer period, there is a high chance that you can hold your lecture outside of the classroom if the weather is nice. In case that your class does not contain more than 20 students, it should not be difficult to form a circle and continue as usual. If there are more than 20 students in the class, you should rather suggest some little team work for the session in the sun in smaller groups.





4. Innovative education technologies

Innovative presentation tools enable teachers nowadays to optimize their lectures. Beamium, for example, makes it possible to present directly on the devices of your audience and to share your lecture slides in real-time with your listeners. Your students will be able to take the slides home directly after the presentation and do not have to download them afterwards from any platforms. Moreover, Beamium helps you to engage your listeners with some interaction features and offers the possibility to analyze the success of your presentation.





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5. Reduce the length of the class

Reducing the length of the lesson with all the important information which you need to teach? Yes, because it is important to make breaks and has advantages to stop earlier. Students nowadays have a lot of pressure and not enough time to compensate. Try to focus on the most important points of the lesson and give your students from time to time some space to interact with each other and to go home a few minutes earlier. These little benefits will motivate them in the next lesson and positively influence their attitude to your lecture.





6. Spend some time with your students outside of the class-room

Do you want to understand why your students look on social media during your lecture? Maybe it has nothing to do with your way of presenting. Sometimes, it is just more thrilling to wait for the exam results of another class. Spend some times with your students after your class to understand them better. You could also organize a little event on the afternoon with enough time for some small talk.





7. Bring some practical insights in the lecture

There are various ways how you can make your lecture more practical. You could, for example, invite a professional guest speaker who talks about the topic from a practical perspective. In best case, the guest speaker has some contradictory opinions to your previous class so that your students get interested in the diverse views on the topic. If possible, you could even bring your whole class in a real-life scenario and hold your lesson together with an experienced employee. Many companies are happy to present their businesses to young talents and to get some insights from you as an expert in your field.

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