Do me a favor? Think about your favorite class in highschool/college. What made that class fun/exciting/useful for you. My favorite class was wildlife and fisheries, and my favorite unit in that class was on Survival Skills in the field. For two weeks, not a single day was spent inside a classroom; we were outside, exploring, testing different survival techniques and skills. We had a blast learning important skills that I still remember to this day. What really got all of us hooked was the simple interest approach that Mrs. Mosemann presented at the beginning of class: You and two teammates are stranded on an island. You can have two materials from the list. What do you choose, Why, and how do you survive. To be completely honest, none of us were even close to survivalist experts, and unless I see one of my former classmates on the discovery channel, I find it safe to assume that we still are not masters of the wilderness. But, through a simple interest approach, Instantly I became excited and interested in one of the greatest weeks of learning that I have ever had.
Any day of any given week, you could take a walk down a high school hallway and find students in classrooms, doing what high-schoolers seem to do best..... Sleeping. Most would assume that the content was dry, and while in some cases that may be correct, in others, we find that a teacher has either:
A. Not provided an interest approach, Or
B. The interest approach is a powerpoint slide that introduces a lecture.
If you are a teacher guilty of this, let me proceed to give you the proverbial pat on the shoulder and tell you, everything will be alright, we caught it in time. Now is the time to start taking action in your interest approaches, and start changing your ways. You ask yourself (and me probably, since I'm posing the question), "How do I engage my student's more?". Well, it starts with
student engagement.
Interest approaches can be approached (see what I did their) in multiple ways. But it all comes back to three basic structures: Are students intrigued, Are students lacking insight/knowledge, Do students see the need? these three areas can make/break any lesson plan. Lets take a closer look.
Are my students intrigued/engaged?
For an interest approach to work, it needs to make students excited. For instance, too change things up, use playdough, or markers and personal whiteboards as part of an interest approach sometime. You will discover one of the greatest lessons ever: No matter how old someone gets, they will always love playdough/drawing. Maybe arts isn't your style. That's fine; get the brain juices flowing by actually giving the students a challenge. People naturally become more attentive when there schema's are contorted and twisted and sent into a new direction. A student thinks that they are the master of plant science, give them a new challenge, give them a different perspective and then BAM!!!! this student goes from being Mr./Mrs. master of the universe, to Mr./Mrs. im going to be master of the universe. Which leads into my next point;
Are my students challenged?
This fits into the structure of student insight/knowledge. This section can be more of a balancing act. While students are more likely to be engaged when they are challenged by a subject, they will immediately shut down when you ask them to perform calculus when they are on a basic geometry basis. OK, maybe that is a little extreme, but the point is, students need to have the background knowledge capable to answer at least part of the interest approach. You wouldn't want to have an interest approach of students performing surgery on an animal if they don't know the parts of that particular animal. Furthermore, you don't want students to diagram mitosis if you gave them the diagram the day before in class. Once a student is challenged, the last part should fall into place.
Do my students see the need?
If a student is excited and challenged, the need should become more intrinsic (I need to know this because if I want to be master of my own domain, I should know this information.). But, as teachers we should be able to make this a deeper more meaningful experience. Why should I as a student know average corn yields in my county and state and how to increase those yields? Well, since daddy grows corn, and granddaddy grew corn, and great-granddaddy grew corn, and I want to grow corn so I can feed my cows, this kind of information is important. Lets say you don't come from an Ag background, how does corn yield effect you? well, corn effects ethanol, when ethanol prices are sky high, fuel prices become sky high. corn prices also effect beef/sheep/swine/ and just about any other livestock price. If I know what it takes to produce high yields of corn, and I know that the corn isn't receiving it (water for instance). Can't I make an educated guess that low corn yields lead to high corn prices (Look at that, I just incorporated economics), which will lead to high meat prices and high fuel prices, and isn't their an old saying that goes "an informed shopper is a wise shopper". This is a needs based approach, and maybe you can think of a different way to fill the need. Either way, if students don't see the need, students wont care about what you teaching, and that's when you see sleeping teenagers in your classroom.
Congratulations, you have reached the conclusion of this blog. But seriously, engaging students is an important need that should be at the top of any teachers to do list. It is our job to make sure we cover the three basic structures and that we challenge our students to be involved in their education. Maybe a good way to get them involved is a Survivalist Unit Plan?
