Alternate Activities
Using alternate activities to keep students attention when they become unfocused is ideal but ideally we use our most interesting material upfront, so what are some new exciting ideas for activities that can help? Thanks.
Lillian,
When we can make learning fun, students will more willing to participate and probably retain the essential information better as well.
Barry Westling
Yes, I agree that diversity is always good. there are so many diverse student with ages and culture until it is good to be diverse. Sometimes students can have some ideas about what is interesting to them. I think that learning is so much more fun when it is a game.We play jeopardy and games like that.
Patricia,
As alluded to before, when we make learning a fun and interesting experience, students will be more involved, engaged, and enjoy the activities more. That usually results in better retention of essential information.
Barry Westling
Your idea to use "chopped" as a game is very interesting and gives me some ideas for future Plan B activites - thanks!
Paul,
Great exercise. There's no reason learning can't be fun and entertaining as well as instructional.
Barry Westling
I like to incorporate games into the classroom. From something like Jeopardy to more involved team competitions modeled after reality TV shows. I have used the Food Network show "Chopped" as a model, giving students four disparate elements and having them created a unified whole within a tight timeframe. This breaks up normal class lectures and brings a sense of drama and excitement into the classroom.
Robin ,
I remember classes where I was proud of my work, and I appreciated when that work was recognized by my instructor and my classmates. Recognition for a good job is a terrific motivator, and it's a good learning strategy to involve that kind of recognition in our lessons and activity assignments.
Barry Westling
I enjoy offering the students various activities in every class knowing they look forward to the diversity and the opportunity for each or most students to volunteer in class to share the work they did best and feel most proud of sharing.
David,
Great way to enlighten and inspire, regardless of the class topic.
Barry Westling
One of the main things that I do in every class, every term, is to add to the class an item that merely lends support to their life as a whole. For example, this term I shared with all of my classes a DVD from Andy Andrews called the "7 Decisions.
This DVD was an anecdotal and educational sharing of 7 decisions that all effective leaders have made over their lifetime. This not only served as an educational piece, but also as a motivational piece to the "college puzzle" for the students.
Mike,
Well, the obvious answer is don't use all your interesting material at the beginning. That said, activities such as discussions, student work groups, reviewing, and working on homework or worksheets near the end of a class day are some things that students are usually appreciative of in lieu of listening to straight lectures.
Barry Westling
