What should you do if you don’t understand a particular concept in the classroom?

Do the students always find concepts taught in the classroom easy? Noted educational authors think negatively about this! Researchers believe that almost more than 50% of the students lose concentration in the class in the middle of teaching. It becomes obvious when students fail miserably to keep proper eye contact with the teacher. While the lecture goes on, they keep on talking or gossiping. Although students keep on looking at the face of teacher, they fail to catch the purport behind teacher’s words. Even though, you are brainy, it is not unusual that you could not make head or tail of anything from a classroom lecture. Understanding something is a process that needs presence of mind and to a great extent, it depends on condition of mind. To sharpen understanding in a classroom, you need certain preparedness. Although it is not easy, continued practice could make your understanding easier and sharper. As a matter of fact, the most intelligent students even fail to understand the complete teaching in a classroom and when the class is over, they come out discussing among themselves. You need not feel guilty about your intelligence, when such a thing takes place. You just need to adopt a practice that would make you understand the most complex concept. At times, understanding comes gradually and it comes only through practice.

The following tips could guide you for realizing the complex subject-matter through simple steps.

Listening is key to understanding

 Listening is an art. Unfortunately, in a classroom, few students have the real training to listen. They pay more attention to the words of the students in the group. In other words, students stay more attentive about the distractions in the classroom that easily carry them away from understanding. The concept taught in the class might seem very tough but you need to listen to every word of teacher without paying heed to the distraction that goes on during a discussion in a classroom. As a wise proverb says-‘practice listening to discover the truth behind the words of the preceptor’, concerted listening gives way to understanding the core of every concept. Listening is an art that needs long practice. Although, students grow up in age, the restlessness of mind lasts right from childhood. True meditative mood dawns, while you observe your breathing in the classroom. Just watch your incoming and outgoing breathing, while your mind gives you a slip in the middle of teaching in a classroom. This would simply break you away from the restlessness of mind that jumps from one branch to other in a tree like a monkey.  Listening helps you to realize the complex part in the subject. While some students argue that too much silent listening could make them appear dull in a classroom discussion. But the reality is when you listen without too much interfering you become a sought-out person in a group. As you focus your mind on every word in a classroom discussion and try to realize every word spoken, it simply takes you across the hurdles that come in a discussion in a classroom.

Make notes of important parts of a concept

As you train your ears in listening you need to continue to make notes of important parts in lecture. But keep yourself away from getting too much engaged in writing without listening properly. As the lecture continues in a class, listening would guide you to take notes of the important parts of a concept. Especially, the things, which could play tricks on your understanding, need to get noted. The important thing here is notes in a classroom need to become structured enough to result in a summary of the ‘classroom teaching’. When you listen, note down the logical sequence in the teaching of a preceptor. Take note of the things, which come one after one in the classroom presentation by the teacher. The structure followed in a classroom teaching gradually gets you understanding about a concept. For instance, when a complex problem in Mathematics gets taught by a teacher, invariably he explains following certain steps. You need to acquire understanding about sequence of steps in the structure of concept in the explanation by the teacher. By the time, the class is over, this would get you an overall understanding about the concept. Later, you could make an analysis of this at your home and add more knowledge by reading to understand completely about the concept. By this practice, you would gradually acquire maturity over the nitty-gritty in a subject.

Look for flow-chart, diagrams, sketches, and ideas for the concept

Flowchart, diagrams, and sketches are important tools for understanding of a concept. Those are the pictorial presentation of things in concept that would help you enormously in understanding the core part of the concept. Flow charts are really easy to follow, while diagrams and sketches make the understanding easier with illustrative presentation of the concept. You could make searches for all these tools in the web and get understanding about the sequence of logic in the concept. Even literature, History, and Philosophy have subjective sketches to help your understanding. Looking for ideas in such tools could get you the perfect order to understand something completely. Here the importance has to stay on finding ways to get the logic in the concept. Once you realize the logic, it becomes your foundation and you could successively build structure on it to make your understanding complete and get maturity about the concept.

Brain-storming for critical concept- When you have laid foundation of your understanding, it is always a good decision to call your group of close friends for a session of brain-storming. This would bring out fresh ideas about new dimensions about the concept. When you discuss with your group of close friends, it gets you more clarity about the concept. You get to the crux of the concept as your friends make clear various important aspects of the concept. Over the years, brain-storming has stayed an important tool for deriving insights about a concept.

Write about the concept in your own way- When you begin composing your thoughts about a particular concept and show it to the teacher, his evaluation and remarks on your ideas gets your more clarity about it. Writing and presenting your ideas about the concept in a structured way gets you confidence, while your teacher’s evaluation of your writing gives concrete understanding about the concept. Writing is an important tool for self-assessment that gives you lucid ideas about a particular concept. It is the most effective tool to help in hundred percent understanding of the concept.