Zing

(During the summer months, I like to take the A-Z Challenge and come up with words alphabetically and see how they apply to education. I think it’s a great exercise for teachers and students to give this a try. This is my last one in the series and I hope you enjoyed them.)

If you’ve ever watched the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you will be able to commiserate with the students who are sitting in a class while a teacher calls out names in a monotone voice. One can only imagine what his teaching must be like! Nothing is worse than sitting in a class where not only are you bored learning the topic but the teacher is also bored teaching the topic!

Before I plan a lesson, I try to think about why I’m excited about this topic. If it is one of the course requirements or required to meet standards, then I ask what aspect of this can I make exciting. What can I do to make this an interesting lesson for both myself and the students? I want to put a little zing in the lesson.

If I’m excited about a lesson, my excitement usually rolls over to the students. They can’t help themselves. Of course, they might act bored or too cool to be in school, but I believe there is a tiny spark hidden in them that makes them want to know more. This is the zing that I believe should be in every one of my lessons.

There might be a certain point of view that I think would be interesting to look at. Or there might be a specific event or person that we want to know more about. We might want to dig below the surface of the information we have in order to find out the motivation for the event.

I might ask students what would bring out the zing in a lesson. They may have additional ideas that I hadn’t thought of. Students love the chance to give input and even appreciate it more when I listen and use some of their ideas! When students feel they have input, they tend to be more engaged in the lesson.

What do you do to bring zing in your lessons? Please share.

Photo by Genessa Panainte on Unsplash