Have you ever caught your students daydreaming as you were lecturing a lesson? Or maybe you’ve seen a student or two nod off during class hours.
If these incidents have happened in your classroom, you’re not alone. Most teachers have experienced these challenges at some point in their careers. This is especially true if the class material is dry and boring, leaving the students feeling disengaged.
As an educator, you play a vital role in how your students learn. If you don’t employ the best teaching practices, your students won’t have an enriching educational experience, which can be detrimental to their mental health and success both in and out of the classroom.
If you’ve tried other techniques to no avail, then you absolutely have to shake up how the class is conducted to foster student engagement. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
1) Use Technology
Technology has revolutionized the way we do things and made it easier to get tasks done than ever before. This new wave of technology can also help you breathe new life into your classroom.
While robots won’t be replacing your job anytime soon, a variety of online resources can be called upon to elevate the liveliness inside the classroom. For instance, instead of handing out a quiz after each lesson, you can utilize Kahoot! or other quiz learning platforms to make the experience more interactive for both you and your students.
Furthermore, some classes may also use online tools to make the lecture more digestible and easier to follow. For example, if you teach a high-school-level chemistry class, you can find websites dedicated to showing how various chemicals interact with one another without going to the physical laboratory. There are also virtual simulators like a frog-dissecting simulator and architecture design software that can be used for other science and art classes.
Technology, in essence, removes the need to rely on expensive equipment that may take a long time to obtain, all while still retaining the educational benefits.
2) Get Students Involved
When the teacher fails to keep the students engaged in the material, it’s easy for their minds to wander off. As a result, it becomes more difficult to drive home the lesson’s key points.
To avoid this, you need to get the students more involved in the class. Using teaching strategies to make children aware of what they are learning can be beneficial since it gives students an idea of what’s at stake as well as enhance their conceptual understanding of the topic at hand.
In addition, involving students in the lesson also allows you to gather feedback on their understanding of the material. This is extremely useful as you can quickly identify areas where the students are struggling and adapt your instruction accordingly.
Finally, getting students involved can also make the learning process more fun. Even though some students may be shy, there are many ways to get them to open up and participate. For example, you can use icebreakers at the beginning of class or host an educational game presentation to review the material covered in class.
3) Relate Lesson Material to Real-World Experiences
When discussing something obscure like advanced algebra or the anatomy of a fish, it can be difficult to argue about the practical benefits of learning the subject matter.
To address this issue, showing the relevance of these lessons to a child’s real-world experiences can flip their interest on like a light switch. They’ll piece together how the material applies to things they see and do every day, which can help ingrain the concepts in their memory.
For example, if you’re teaching a lesson on photosynthesis, you can relate it to how plants produce the oxygen we need to survive. If you’re teaching a lesson on early history, you can relate it to the current political situation in the nation.
By making these connections, students will be able to see the value in what they’re learning and be more likely to remember the material in the future.
4) Switch Things Up
If you’ve been lecturing the past few lessons in a monotonous fashion, aim to find a way to switch things up. Predictability is boring, especially if the subject matter has no appeal to the students in the first place.
To keep them on their toes, try using different methods of instruction such as making creative video presentations, hands-on activities, or group work weekly. You may also consider inviting over a renowned guest speaker to discuss the topic in more depth or take a field trip to a related location.
Not only will this make the class more enjoyable, but it also gives students something to look forward to in class.
5) Challenge Assumptions
One way to immediately stimulate the mind of an individual is to challenge their current thinking paradigm.
A lot of people have been exposed to misconceptions or have adopted beliefs that aren’t scientifically supported. If you can find a way to correct these false beliefs, it’ll compel the student to re-evaluate their current understanding of the topic.
While your aim isn’t to indoctrinate your students into one way of thinking, providing them with accurate information that they can conclude on their own can help expand their worldview and make them more critical thinkers.
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