Benefits of Eye Contact in Conversations, Essay Example

There are three key domains in learning. They include cognitive, affective, and psychomotor (Wilson). The three domains form Bloom’s Taxonomy. These domains were developed in the years between 1956 and 1972. The affective domain deals with such issues as people’s  attitudes, their emotions, together with what they feel (Wilson). On the other hand, the cognitive domain strictly deals with the development of mental skills while acquiring knowledge (Wilson). There are five steps in the cognitive learning domain. They include acquiring knowledge, comprehension of the knowledge, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Lastly, the psychomotor domain deals with all physical movements, their corresponding coordination, and the use of motor-skilled areas. The development of these skills in psychomotor requires some practice. The skills in this domain are measured through speed, distance, precision, and execution techniques (Wilson). Therefore, all three learning domains are essential to individuals because they complement each other.

In the years of learning, these domains have received an immense contribution from various researchers and expertise who hailed from the field of education and its related studies. It is through learning that individuals can develop their attitudes. They are then encouraged to acquire new skills through the same learning exercise. Therefore, the three key learning domains necessitate individuals to grasp contents in their learning schedules.

My lesson plan is on the benefits of eye contact when having conversations with other people. This lesson plan is categorized under the learning domain of psychomotor. It is categorized under the psychomotor domain because ‘eye contact’ is a physical exercise. It can be measured in terms of distance, precision, and the procedures of executing it. The concept of eye contact is a key aspect in communication. Therefore, for individuals to fully comprehend concepts and grasp steps taught in class, they need to maintain proper eye contact.

Eye contact is, therefore, important in several ways. First, eye contact is crucial because it helps one establish a great connection with the audience (Barnard). Speakers tend to assess the audience’s feelings through the action of maintaining eye contact with them. Once the speaker develops eye contact with his audience, the audience is more likely to respond positively- they will look back at him, then listen to his ideas, and buy them in the process. The individual can identify if the audience is attentive to him or not. Through the exact maintenance of proper eye contact, the speaker can always identify if the topic is engaging. With this identification, the speaker will either change the topic to accommodate the audience’s feelings or know when to break the boredom. Therefore, eye contact is critical in developing a good learning partnership by the audience with their speaker.

Also, eye contact helps in improving one’s concentration (Barnard). For instance, it is difficult for an audience to listen to a speaker in a room with different speakers, and noise is rampant. In this case, eye contact helps one easily avoiding distractions. Once a person maintains eye contact with their intended speaker, they eliminate the chances of getting distracted by any secondary noise. Therefore, eye contact is essential in helping individuals to avoid distractions when learning in situations where there are multiple voices.

Eye contact is also essential in facilitating an engagement between the audience and the speaker (Barnard). During a learning session, the audience will be more interested in listening to one’s speech when they only see the person scanning the crowd (Barnard). These people will respond positively. They will start nodding if they are asked questions that require them to nod; they will also look frowned if they are not interested in the concept presented to them and smile if the concept is both funny and exciting. Therefore, there is a less likely turn off from the audience without proper eye contact between the speaker and the audience. They will focus on other things like concentrating on their phones instead of entirely giving the speaker attention.

Lastly, eye contact helps in the projection of both authority and confidence in oneself (Barnard). Addressing an audience without maintaining eye contact with them is constantly undermined by the audience. They will stop believing as well as concentrating on the speaker’s speech. Eye contact should therefore remain focused and sustained (Schulz). It gives the speaker the authority to convince and guide the audience without fear, thus communicating confidence.

Some tips can be employed to help individuals improve their eye contact. These include seeing one audience as individual listeners, involving every person in the conversation, sustaining eye contact to enable making a connection and moving on, averting one’s eyes when the audience grows uncomfortable, ensuring that there is a pre-meeting with the audience before the start of the presentation, critical preparation of one’s presentation and ensuring eye contact, especially when delivering the critical parts of the speech (Barnard). These tips, therefore, help individuals in improving their eye contact skills in the psychomotor learning domain.

Lesson Plan Assessment Questions

1. Reflect on the lesson plan about the benefits of maintaining eye contact
2. What are the three key learning domains?
3. Assess and discuss the cognitive learning domain giving real-life examples
4. Assess and discuss the affective learning domain giving real-life-examples
5. Assess and discuss the psychomotor learning domain giving real-life examples
6. In which learning domain does eye contact fall in place?
7. What are the benefits of maintaining an eye during a learning session?
8. How do videos help one understand through a visual perspective of how eyes are thinking?
9. Suggest ways in improving one’s eye contact either with a corresponding audience or with the speaker

Learning Assessment Rubric

Works Cited

Barnard, Dom. The Importance of Eye Contact during a Presentation. 24 October 2017. https://virtualspeech.com/blog/importance-of-eye-contact-during-a-presentation#:~:text=October%2024%2C%202017%20%2D%20Dom%20Barnard%20%2D%204%20min%20read&text=Positive%20eye%20contact%20helps%20you,message%20on%20a%20personal%20level.

Schulz, Jodi. Eye contact: An introduction to its role in communication. 28 November 2012. https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/eye_contact_an_introduction_to_its_role_in_communication

Wilson, Leslie Owen. Three Domains of Learning – Cognitive, Affective, Psychomotor. 2021. https://thesecondprinciple.com/instructional-design/threedomainsoflearning/.