14. The Power of Positive Attention

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The power of positive attention. This comes from Spencer Kagan's book called Cooperative Learning, one of the most impactful teaching books of my career. He says, "I cannot emphasize enough the power of giving positive attention to positive behaviors. One day, I was in a classroom of a teacher trying to figure out jigsaw She had been part of my one-day workshop and had, also seen me demonstrate jigsaw with another class at her middle school. She had all the elements right. The class would come to full attention when she raised her hand. The student experts were standing as they presented their parts to their group. One team had had a missing expert, and the teacher handled that as well. But something was terribly wrong. The noise level was high. Over in one group, the expert was using her newfound authority to scold her teammates for being stupid. In another group, as soon as the teacher was looking another way, the expert stuffed some paper in his nose, which led to loud giggles and laughter, and the quiet signal was really not much help. The kid responded by quickly coming to attention, but right afterwards, they would return to loud talking and off-task behaviors. As I watched, I became increasingly uncomfortable. What was wrong? What could be done? I remembered the power of positive attention and walked over to the teacher and said, 'I'm going to sit down again, but in a moment, I want you to walk over to the best group in the class, give the quiet signal, and draw everyone's attention to the group, praising them for their good work, saying exactly what you like about their behavior. Don't give points, just clearly say what you like.' She did, and we were both surprised by the power of the praise. For about ten minutes after the positive attention, all the teams were markedly more on task. When they began to slip, I asked her to use positive attention again, focusing on another team. This time, teams stayed on task longer. By the end of the class period, the class had turned it around. We both saw jigsaw working the way it should. The teacher was thrilled. She had a powerful tool for shaping her class. Positive attention establishes norms for the classroom. Students learn which behaviors are valued. They receive a very clear message as to how to behave in the new setting. Holding up a model, the groups which are behaving well, is a clear way to give the message that we value certain behaviors. The students feel more secure when clear norms are established." End of quote by Spencer Kagan. Now, in my classes, when I teach these strategies, for example, about small group work and things like that, and some people have tried those and say, "Well, it leads to chaos." Well- This strategy, the power of positive attention and drawing attention to what is working well, leads to great success and really helps to shape the class. If we just give the assignment with no instructions and no feedback and put them in small groups and say, "Go for it," we tend to get chaos. But with a little bit of structure I'll on other occasions explain a little bit more about, and posit-- the power of positive attention to what you like, small groups are very effective. I also get people wondering, "How can I get my students to do things like scripture study pages or reading and marking on their own i- in the activities that I do in my class?" Again, the power of positive attention. I start day one or as soon as possible with a small activity of reading, marking, sharing, and walking them through each step. And then I positively reinforce all the good that I am seeing, holding up papers and saying, "I love this work. Look at the markings. Look at the highlights." Then as we move forward, I ask my students to point out something positive they see on their teammate's paper, or maybe even swap papers with a teammate and then read over, find something positive to highlight, and then share with their teammate what you like and what you observed about their work that was effective or helpful. And just that positive reinforcement. "I noticed on your paper that you highlighted this phrase. That's a really good phrase, and that's a really good marking." Something simple like that that they could share to their teammate. But that takes a little bit of modeling and training. Not long, this is just less than thirty seconds, but it has a huge impact. The power of positive attention. Good luck, my friends. You got this. You're a hero, and you are awesome.