5 Ways to Listen Better… TED TALK

I recently listened to an educational podcast that was a TED talk about how we can listen

better in our life. This was tailored specifically to how we can listen better in the education field

towards our students but even our coworkers. In this TED Talk I found multiple things

interesting to me. One of the main things is that when we listen to something we only truly

retain 25% of the information we are hearing. I related this to lecturing students in the classroom

for long periods of time. If they are only retaining roughly 25% of what I am saying, how much

is the student really getting out of it? We need to make sure we are giving occasional brain

breaks and other forms of teaching whether it is group work, video, textbook, worksheet, this

way the students brain is switching to new teaching methods rather than sitting and listening to

me just speak the whole time. Another thing that I liked was the ways he talked about improving

our listening skills. One of the exercises that was discussed was the exercise on savoring. Now

you might be asking yourself, what do you mean by savoring? Learning to listen to unique

sounds and being able to recognize them. An example of this is listening to rainfall, thunder,

washing machines, etc. You are able to distinctly know what you are listening to because of prior

practice and experience engaging in the sound. Daily listening activities are great in order to

become a better listener. Take about 5 minutes out of your day, and do an activity that involves

relaxing and just listening to the sounds around you. You can incorporate an activity like this in

your everyday class too. Playing random sounds and noises and just having the students sit there

and listen and enjoy them. Another strategy, while it sounds easy, is just sitting in silence. 5

minutes of designated quiet time a day can get the kids to reset and be more open and ready to

listen after the instruction. These are two really easy and integrated strategies that you can do

daily to improve listening for not only the students but yourself as the teacher too.