In other words...

I agree with all of your suggestions for "successful teachers" and I have one more to add with regards to cooperative, hands-on learning. Based on my experience of teaching a fifth grade-class this past year, I believe that hands-on cooperative learning must be grounded in "minds-on" learning. Meaning--I found out that often students were engaged in the process and activity however, they were not learning the concepts behind the activity. This was especially evident in my science program which I taught to two fifth-grade classes. After a couple weeks of chaotic lab activities I decided to rethink my strategy and find a way to have students reflect on what they have learned. Among my new ideas, I included things such as the following:

1. A short, individual warm-up activity before each lab that involved problem solving, solutions, writing and thinking.

2. Although students worked in groups of 3 or 4, I employed step by step lab instruction. This gave me the opportunity to point out important ideas, ask questions that were critical to understanding the concept and help me focus on what students understood and what they did not.

3. Explicit and detailed instructions for what I expected of them in their lab books and their lab book responses. This also helped students focus on what was important and it also insured that they would think about the concepts behind the activity. Don't assume that students are completing all of the steps or exploring important ideas. Direction always helps.

4. Homework assignments, group problem solving activities and a lab the next week that involved critical thinking, reflection, problem solving all based on what they did the week prior.

5. Integrating these concepts into other subjects and lessons. Don't let ideas die! Use them again and again. Plus students will be proud of their resourceful ability to recall what they have learned.

Now how do you deal with this ??? Here is what has and still works for me.

1. Exclude as many distractions as possible. At work I wore industrial ear plugs and found that they were great at filtering out the distractions and allowing me to concentrate on the people that were talking.
2. At home I surrounded my self with "meaningless noise" I listened to music through headphones, here again, we are screening out distractions and allowing the brain to devote all it attention to the task at hand
3. I work on tasks only as long as I can make progress and when the "fog" closes in I quit.
4. I only read what I have to because I like most ADD persons I also am somewhat dexletic so reading is a real problem.

BTW did I tell you I have been a practicing Facility and Mechanical engineer for the last 35 years??? So not reading every little detail about every little subject will not stifle a career much to dismay and amazement of my High School teachers.

I also flunked every algebra, trig and physics course I ever took until I learned to do it different than the book. But my stress analysis always worked. ( at least no structure ever caved in)

OK I am tired now so let's recap and get out of here......

ADD is a information management problem not a lack of intelligence.
ADD Can be controlled by alienating the distractions.
ADD persons work on a "Last in -Last out" system.
ADD people are not well served by those who insist that they be trained "act normal"

Thank you for listening

Ken Phillips

P.S. This letter took me 1:30 to compose using all the features of MS Word 6.2