During this holiday season, I thought it would be fun to use the word Christmas and apply it to education.
Today’s letter is I and I stands for interesting.
When it is time to introduce a new lesson, this time is important to set up my future lessons for success or failure.
If I start out in a boring fashion and explain the nuts and bolts of the future unit, it will fall flat on its face. My students will hate the whole unit and I’m not sure they will really learn and retain any of the new information.
If I can make the introduction interesting and have them looking forward to what is in store for them, they will be excited about learning. They will be curious to learn more. Even though they may face obstacles, they will enjoy learning this new information. If they find it interesting, they will remember this information for a longer time.
I may dress up like a key character in the unit. Students always enjoy seeing me come in as someone else. I like to teach the whole lesson as if I’m that character. This takes some time and research on my part but it is a lot of fun.
I may show a clip from a movie and tell them that this will be an important part of our lesson. Student loves video clips. I might even show the whole movie at the end of the unity.
I may set up a treasure hunt where each part of the unit is one part of the treasure map. As they complete each lesson successfully, they get a piece of the puzzle and can move on to the next part. Once they have all the parts, they can put it all together to get a complete map and find the treasure. The treasure may be a specific reward for that particular student.
There are lots of ways to make lessons interesting. What do you do? Please share.
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