Why should I do it:
- Students respond immediately to teacher eye contact
- Keeps students on their toes
- Encourages students to be more attentive and focused
- Provides off task, disruptive, inattentive, and other students with a non-verbal cue to stop what they are doing and get back on task
- Is a subtle way to address behaviors and students without drawing a lot of attention
- Saves time
- Easy and quick to do
When should I do it:
- When a student is misbehaving, off task, inattentive, talking out of turn, disrupting, not following classroom procedure, etc
- When a student seems sleepy or tired
- When a student seems to be plotting to do something behind your back
- When students have a history of clowning around
How do I do it:
- Many times, students naturally read teacher eye contact as a non-verbal cue to stop doing what they are doing and do what they should be
- There are many ways to do this and it will be a matter of trial and error
- You may look at a student without changing expressions until they look at you
- You may look at a student until they look at you, then change your expression, such as raising your eyebrows, tilting your head, shaking your head “no” or “yes”, motioning with your eyes, etc
- Try to make the action smooth, not stopping your instruction or task at hand to give the cue
- If a student does not react right away, you may need to stop instruction and give the student a “look” again to make it more pronounced
- You may consider speaking with a student in private, setting up a plan where when you give them a certain “look” or just look at them, they will do something or refocus, etc