Have you ever been in the middle of teaching a class, glanced at your students, and caught them staring into space? Just when you think you've created the perfect lesson plan or engaging activity, you may find that your students are unfocused and out to lunch. Yet it's essential that you find ways to keep your classes interesting so your students can absorb and retain the information that you present. For decades, educators have been trying new teaching strategies to keep their students on their toes and get them excited about learning. Although some strategies have failed, others have been found to be quite effective. Explore 10 teacher-tested ways to keep your class interesting so your students will stay engaged all the time. Learning may be the most fun for your students when they don't know what to expect. Try to incorporate a sense of surprise and mystery into your lessons. When you're about to unveil a new lesson, give students a new clue each day up until the last day before the start of the lesson. This is a fun way to make your lesson mysterious, and you may find that your students are actually looking forward to finding out what they'll be learning about next. It's appropriate and essential to review classroom material, but try not to repeat it verbatim because this can make it less interesting for students. The next time you need to review material, try playing a review game during which you present the information in a way that's different from the first time you taught the students. The 3-2-1 strategy is a fun way to review and not repeat material. For this activity, students draw a pyramid in their notebooks and write down three things they learned, two things they thought were interesting, and one question they still have. Whether you're 5 or 25, playing a game can be fun. Games are also a great way to keep lessons interesting. If your students need to remember their spelling words, conduct a spelling bee—a contest in which participants are eliminated when they misspell a word. Or if the students need to practice math, have a math bee, which is similar to a spelling bee, but with math problems or facts instead of spelling words. Games make learning fun, and games in class are a prescription for happy kids. One strategy that teachers have found to be effective is offering their students the ability to make their own choices when it comes to learning. Choice can be a powerful motivator because it helps to foster student interest and independence. The next time you're planning an activity, try making a choice board. Print out a tic-tac-toe board and write down nine different tasks for students to complete. The goal is for each student to choose three tasks in a row. Technology is a great way to keep your lessons interesting. Children love electronics, so try incorporating it into your overall teaching strategy. Instead of standing in front of the room and lecturing, try using a Smartboard interactive display. Expand your cooperative learning activity lessons by connecting to a classroom in another city or country via videoconferencing. Use technology in a variety of ways, and you'll see the interest level in your classroom increase by leaps and bounds. Being an effective teacher is an important job, but that doesn't mean that you have to remain serious in class at all times. Try to loosen up a bit and acknowledge that your students may have different interests and learning styles than your own. It's OK to laugh at yourself at times and to have some fun. You may find that your students are more interested when you're a little more relaxed. In a traditional classroom, the teacher stands in front of the room and lectures to the students as the students listen and take notes. Unfortunately, this is not the most effective way to hold students' interest. Make learning interactive by creating hands-on lessons that involve students every step of the way. Try using the Jigsaw cooperative learning activity in which each student is responsible for his or her own part of a group activity. Or try a hands-on science experiment. When you involve students and make your lessons interactive, your class becomes more interesting. Try to create a real-world connection to what your students are learning. This will give them a better understanding of why they need to learn what you're teaching. If they're constantly asking you why they need to learn something and you're always answering with “because,” you will soon lose credibility. Instead, try giving them a real answer such as, "You're learning about money because in the real world, you'll need to know how to buy food and pay your bills." By giving a straightforward answer, you're helping them make a connection between what they're learning in class and how they'll use this information in the future. The flipped classroom has been gaining in popularity since the term "flipped" entered the broader education world in 2012. When it was first presented, the idea that students could learn new information at home and then come to school and use class time for critical thinking activities and reinforcement of concepts was unique. However, many teachers are using this strategy and achieving positive results. Students in a flipped classroom are able to work at their own pace (which is great for differentiated learning) and engage with their peers in a more interactive, meaningful way when they're in the classroom. Try using the flipped teaching strategy for your next lesson and observe the depth of your students' engagement. Lesson plans don't have to include worksheets or lectures during which students sit and take notes time and again. Try thinking outside the box and plan a lesson that's completely out of the ordinary. Invite a guest speaker, go on a field trip, or take learning outdoors. When you try something new and different, there's a good chance that your students will respond positively. When planning a lesson, try collaborating with another teacher or taking your students on a virtual field trip. Learning that engages students is the most effective. Your students will find it more interesting to learn when you present the material to them in a variety of creative ways.
The skills needed for effective teaching involve more than just expertise in an academic field. You must be able to interact with people and help them understand a new way of looking at the world. This is not an easy job! Although there are many different ways to teach effectively, good instructors have several qualities in common. They are prepared, set clear and fair expectations, have a positive attitude, are patient with students, and assess their teaching on a regular basis. They are able to adjust their teaching strategies to fit both the students and the material, recognizing that different students learn in different ways. As a teacher, you are a role model who sets the tone for the class. If you are able to show enthusiasm and commitment, your students are more likely to reciprocate. Conversely, when you are negative, unprepared, or impatient, these qualities will be reflected in the attitudes of your students. Undergraduate students at Georgetown have high expectations of their instructors, and they also have many competing interests beyond the course you are teaching. Give them a reason to remember your class as an important part of their college experience! POSITIVE Keep your students engaged with a positive attitude. Teaching is most effective when students are motivated by the desire to learn, rather than by grades or degree requirements. Many first-time TAs are confused by the new authority of being a teaching assistant, and mistake intimidation for respect. Think of your students as teammates, not adversaries. Learning and teaching are challenging, but that doesn't mean that you can't have fun in the classroom. Stay focused, but don't be afraid to be creative and innovative. Allow yourself to be enthusiastic and find ways to let students see what is interesting about your subject. PREPARED You should know the course material. If students are required to attend lectures and read assignments, then it seems reasonable that you would do the same. Most faculty expect graduate TAs to attend lectures, especially if they have never taken or taught the course. Review key concepts and ideas if you are unclear about them, particularly if it has been a while since you have worked with the topics you will be teaching. Think about how the material can be most effectively demonstrated and design a strategy. Write an outline or take notes to follow during a lecture, and prepare your overheads, diagrams, handouts and other aids well in advance. Don't wait until the morning of the class! ORGANIZED Have a plan for what you want to teach. Your job is to illustrate key points and essential context, to help students integrate all of their work (reading, labs, exams, papers, lectures, etc.) for the course. Given that there is never time to teach everything, choose the most important concepts and show how they are related. Explain ideas so students are able to build on material they have already mastered, whether from your course or previous classes. Don't just focus on what you happen to be teaching today. Show students how what they are learning now is connected to material covered later in the course. Keep your long term goals in mind, pace yourself so that you don't run out of time at the end, and try to end every class with a conclusion. CLEAR Effective teachers can explain complex ideas in simple ways. As you develop expertise in an academic field, it is easy to forget that students may have no prior knowledge of fundamental concepts that you take for granted. Help students understand and use new terminology, so they can become fluent in the language of your discipline. Many concepts can be more effectively demonstrated with visual aids such as diagrams, drawings, charts, slides, etc. Make sure that they are large enough to see, neat enough to read, and don't stand in the way! Think about the role body language can play. Having your teaching observed by someone else (or even better, having it videotaped) can reveal habits that you would never notice on your own. ACTIVE Keep your students thinking. Unless they are actively using the concepts you are teaching, most students will remember only a small fraction of what you teach. A lecture is an efficient way to deliver information to large numbers of people, but it is an inefficient way to provide students with lasting knowledge and skills. Consider using at least some classroom time for activities other than traditional lectures, discussions or question and answer sessions. Problem solving exercises in small groups can take no more than a few minutes, yet allow students to engage with the material being covered. PATIENT Remember what it is like to learn something for the first time. Give students time to process information and answer questions. Know that it is fine for students to make mistakes if they can learn from them. Realize that learning can be hard work, even for the most motivated students. Rather than blaming students when things don't go right, consider ways you could change your approach to reach them more effectively. Concepts, background information or conclusions that seem obvious to you may not be so clear to someone who is new to the subject. Be patient with yourself, too. Teaching can be difficult and frustrating at times. Give yourself the same opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. FAIR Consider what it would be like to be one of your students. Chances are you would want an instructor who set clear expectations, applied them consistently and could admit when they were wrong. Whether you mark off points on an exam question, give a low grade on a paper, or penalize someone for a late assignment, you should be able to explain why you did it. Of course it helps if you have already outlined clear policies, both for the entire course and for each assignment. Once you have set standards, it is very important to apply them equally and consistently, otherwise you will lose credibility. On the other hand, if you make a mistake or don't know the answer to a question, it is much better to acknowledge rather than ignore it. TECHNOLOGY TIP Since it is often hard to remember what it is like to encounter your discipline's material at an early stage, peer instruction offers an alternative to the "sage on stage" model. Peer instruction, which usually happens in small group activities or paper response assignments, allows students to get feedback at their own level of discourse and understanding. This provides a helpful complement (not replacement) to instructor feedback. Technology such as the discussion tool in Blackboard helps peer groups stay in contact over long distances and over different periods of time. WHAT IS YOUR LEARNING STYLE? CNDLS has several ways of helping you discover the learning styles you tend to favor. Being more aware of your own tendencies will help you recognize similar or different preferences in your students and react accordingly. Besides the more well-known Myers-Briggs test and visual, auditory, and tactile differences, there are also documented differences in how people problem solve. For instance, you might prefer identifying problems, evaluating solutions, or testing solutions. This might affect what assignments you give, what you focus on in a lecture or discussion, and how you weight grades. Visit us to find out more, either in our suite, Car Barn 314, or online at the CNDLS website. TECHNOLOGY TIP 2 E-mail is an excellent and perfectly acceptable way to give feedback to your students. In fact, several professors ask their students to turn in assignments over e-mail. By having a digital copy of students' work, faculty can make comments using the editing tools in Word, have access to the papers wherever there is an internet connection, and keep up with less paper-work, not to mention having a date and time record of when the student turned in the work. Top Qualities of an Effective Teacher |
What are the ways that a teacher can do in order to make the subject matter content meaningful?
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