How to sustain students’ interest in schoolwork?
School education yields the best learning outcomes when teachers manage to grab students’ interest. This is done using smart education technology, innovative pedagogy and some good old out-of-the-box thinking on the part of the educators.
The younger generation today has a very different attention span and engagement thresholds. Accustomed to using gadgets and being active on social media, the youth are not inclined towards the traditional chalk-talk in classrooms. Any routine and monotonous lesson leaves them with a wavering attention. Teachers have identified these concerns and adopted some novel ways of delivering instruction. The pandemic, which marked a shift from classroom education to e-learning, has provided a further opportunity to the teaching community to up its game by using digital tools.
With the schools beginning to reopen now, teachers need to carry forward the lessons learnt during the pandemic and make classroom education a whole lot more engaging for students.
Some of the tips to win students’ interest and engagement in both offline and online mode are as follows:
Engaging students with innovative pedagogy
Teachers ought to make learning an active and experiential exercise for the students. Instead of just hearing verbal lessons, students must be made to actively participate through reading, writing, discussing, creating and problem solving. This is active learning and it involves students’ active participation every step of the way.
Educators need to adopt new strategies of teaching and needn’t hesitate in trying out new ideas. A real-life instance is of a Hindi teacher who, noticing lack of interest towards the subject among her students, came up with a smart idea of introducing in class 1, a puppet that would talk and teach. The children loved this new teaching method and Hindi became a favourite subject. Similar innovative ideas can be tried for other subjects as well. Extended learning beyond the textbook, ideation, brainstorming, hotseat, and roleplay are all various ways to engage students.
Making learning fun through technology
There is no dearth of multiple online tools that generate excitement among students, engage the whole class and also assess simultaneously. These include Mentimenter, Quizzes, Nearpod, and Pear Deck. They help to make learning interactive through videos, gamification, polls, and activities that involve simultaneous participation of many students.
Online platforms such as Flipgrid and Padlet allow children to post their assignments and responses in the form of videos or drawings or written responses. These platforms also facilitate a lot of peer learning.
To make subjects like history and geography more engaging, teachers can use Google Earth and Airpano. These online tools can virtually take the child to the place that is being talked about in the text. Visits to museums and other monuments and places of interest can also happen virtually through these apps. Pixton is an online platform that taps into the artistic and
writing potential of students. It gives students the tools to create their own comic story strips. Likewise, the Squiggles app involves students in prewriting tasks while the Blooket app transforms learning into a game where questions put up by a teacher are presented to students in the form of a gaming contest. Toonstatic 3D app involves students in storytelling through the creative means of drawing, narrating and recording.
Augmented reality and virtual reality make learning experiential for students. Complex topics can be rendered comprehensible and easy by audio-visual 3-D representations and simulations. Students are known to enjoy the sessions in the AR/VR labs and they display higher memory retention for what they learn.
Making learning practical
The purpose of education is to make children knowledgeable, help them understand the world around them, empower them to follow their ambition and make a change for the better. For this reason, education must go beyond just learning the theories.
It often happens that the children are unable to relate to a topic or subject being taught because of a disconnect between academia and the outside world. A good idea could be to invite guest speakers from all walks of life to re-kindle interest and inspire children.
Celebration of special days like World Ozone Day, World Health Day, World Book Day, World International Creativity and Innovation Day, Earth Day, and World Braille Day etc. gives an opportunity to students to be aware of much more than what is there in the textbooks. It connects them to people, places and cultures of the world.
Engaging children in social and environmental programs teaches them empathy, compassion, a spirit of service and concern for the planet. Such beyond-the-class lessons are deeply satisfying and engaging for learners.
Co-curricular activities are a great way to develop physical, mental and emotional skills in students. Schools must look beyond the obvious sports and recreation activities and introduce new facilities such as archery or shooting range, or a film editing studio or a radio-jockey room to tap into the nascent talent of the students. Developing extra-curricular skills boosts confidence and self-esteem. Teaching children life skills makes them more tolerant and develops in them the ability to think critically and originally. Other skills which are not generally taught in schools like financial literacy and media literacy, relationship skills, socio-emotional skills go a long way in not only engaging the students, but making them reflective individuals.
Feedback and appreciation
Nothing boosts a child’s morale more than a genuine word of appreciation by the teacher. Deserving students who perform consistently well must be acknowledged, recognized and rewarded by the school authorities. This ensures greater engagement and participation by them in academic and nonacademic activities inside and outside the classrooms. Students who don’t perform equally well needn’t feel left out. The onus is on teachers to identify their learning gaps and address them in a way that inspires students to better their performance.
Many times, better student engagement can be elicited by simply greater teacher engagement. An empathetic attitude by teachers, a willingness to understand a student’s concern and giving an honest counsel can draw the best out of the student. What we need is right intention and smart approach.
AS SCHOOLS REOPEN SLOWLY, TEACHERS NEED TO CARRY FORWARD THE LESSONS LEARNT DURING THE PANDEMIC