2014年3月17日中午，仙林学部组织了外教专业学习研讨会议，calvert老师作了“adhd的成因及应对策略”的讲座，中德、小中美、大中美、中澳四个项目的所有外教参加了研讨会。calvert老师用生动的事例展示了adhd（attention deficit hyperactivity disorder： 注意不集中症）的形成原因以及我们教师对患有adhd的学生可以采取的教育措施。eric、john、richard、ben、brant、teresa等教师积极参与讨论，发表自己的看法。
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calvert started the presentation with a story of elbert einstein who suffered learning deficiency problems at childhood with the symptoms such as having difficulties in spelling and memorizing. he was put in a special class with other retarded students. the teacher used special strategy to help einstein who eventually overcome the ld and achieved the glorious success in the future.
calvert then aroused the audience’s attention by listing the percentage of people who suffered from the adhd among the school aged children and adults respectively, 5%-12% versus 4%-5%, average 1 to 2 students in a class.
calvert indicated that he has worked with the nanjing international school which has a special department specializing in helping the students who have adhd. the teachers there use strategy and techniques to help those students in learning. calvert also shared his experience in collaborating with his family members in helping his nephew who has adhd.
the formal definition of adhd then was introduced: it is a common childhood disorder which causes difficulties in controlling, staying focus and may be caused by the following four types of reasons: genetic, environmental (such as polluted air or lead), nutrition problems and social environmental. inattention, hyperactivity or the combination of the two are three main displays of the adhd. examples are the behaviors in class such as checking cell phones, turning around, day dreaming, difficulty in processing information, touching something or someone, fidgeting with something. symptoms in boys and girls are different, typical behaviors in boys are carelessness while playing outdoors, prone for injuries, talking loud, while in girls are verbal aggression, talking during class, easily distracted, incomplete home work, introverted in some cases
more symptoms include having trouble in completing assignments, turning in sloppy home works, messy and unorganized desk, struggle to follow instructions, not following rules, always talking excessively.
calvert then proposed some strategies to cope with the above behaviors including: seating arrangement techniques such as letting the student sit facing the front of the classroom and not near the windows, getting to know the student, be in proximity of the student, giving two sets of instruction, in spoken and in written formats, breaking large tasks in to smaller ones, write down the schedule for the whole week.
more strategies include the following:
if the student sleeps in the classroom, contact the parents, give the student leadership role, use the positive word to encourage the student such as ‘i like the way you contribute in the group’, if the student misbehaves, write a contract and have him sign on it. if the student fails to bring in books or home work, send a letter to the parents and let the parents sign on the letter which aims to involve the parents in reminding the student of the assignments. to deal with the mess desk, ask the student to remove everything from the desk. calvert addressed the importance of contacting the parents by citing one example that he learned from the parents that the student forgot to take the medicine of treating adhd for some days.
during the presentation, calvert asked the audience to answer relevant questions and involved them in the discussion. the audience actively participated and shared their experience in handling the above mentioned behaviors.
here are some of the opinions the audience gave:
eric mentioned that in his class, a student twisted the pencils and played with nails. in solving this problem he asked the student’s parents to prevent their children from playing computer games which has caused the student’s over acting with his hands.
john said in his class, occasionally, there are students who are sleepy. he asks them to stand up or stand in front of the classroom, doing physical exercise for a short time.
calvert added the way of writing the student’s name on board.
brant said that he uses different ways to treat different students. for example, after personally knowing a student he allows him to drink some coffee of juice which can calm him down.
ben suggested using different color of papers to help the students
memorize.
richard mentioned that in his classroom, the students’ main problem
is the difficulty in understanding the english which confused them and affected their paying attention.
teresa mentioned that some problems are due to the reason that the student feels boring during class rather than the neuron-disorder.