Love the engagement or entertainment debate. You will hear me talk about the need for teachers to design learning around a hook to get students engaged. Hooks can be a topic or process. It may also be a piece of software or hardware that you think will appeal to the learners. The sales person in you must also sell the hook using your pedagogy choices. Have you thought of any hooks that you could use?
I have read a few blogs and forums where present and former teachers from all over the world share their ideas on how to engage students in their lessons. I loved this one: "I engage my students by hooking them each day with a call to action. I begin each lesson with a preview that "hooks" them into wanting more. I connect the preview to something they know about (real world), which will always connect to the lesson. Then I follow up with a launch activity that gets them involved, out of their seats and discussing/investigating the "task" or call to action - BEFORE - they ever open the text book." (Nancy Bredin/http://www.edutopia.org/groups/social-studies/64919). There was another one: "My students checked out where their shirts were made. We linked it to the world map on a bulletin board. Led to an interesting discussion about who has the money and where it is going." (Loretta Grant/http://www.edutopia.org/groups/social-studies/64919). I would personally involve a lot of Internet activity, i.e. blog, forums, educational games - something they know well, that constitutes part of their life. I liked Nancy's idea of connecting the preview with something they are already familiar with, particularly something they are interested in - this would certainly engage them in exploring the topic further. In earlier grades I could perhaps introduce a new way of learning the alphabet, (I am going to post a picture of it on my blog) connecting each letter with Internet "world" words along with images, such as F for Facebook and G for Google. Plenty of ideas out there and I am hoping to gather a lot more during this course!
Love the engagement or entertainment debate. You will hear me talk about the need for teachers to design learning around a hook to get students engaged.
ReplyDeleteHooks can be a topic or process. It may also be a piece of software or hardware that you think will appeal to the learners. The sales person in you must also sell the hook using your pedagogy choices.
Have you thought of any hooks that you could use?
I have read a few blogs and forums where present and former teachers from all over the world share their ideas on how to engage students in their lessons. I loved this one: "I engage my students by hooking them each day with a call to action. I begin each lesson with a preview that "hooks" them into wanting more. I connect the preview to something they know about (real world), which will always connect to the lesson. Then I follow up with a launch activity that gets them involved, out of their seats and discussing/investigating the "task" or call to action - BEFORE - they ever open the text book." (Nancy Bredin/http://www.edutopia.org/groups/social-studies/64919). There was another one: "My students checked out where their shirts were made. We linked it to the world map on a bulletin board. Led to an interesting discussion about who has the money and where it is going." (Loretta Grant/http://www.edutopia.org/groups/social-studies/64919). I would personally involve a lot of Internet activity, i.e. blog, forums, educational games - something they know well, that constitutes part of their life. I liked Nancy's idea of connecting the preview with something they are already familiar with, particularly something they are interested in - this would certainly engage them in exploring the topic further. In earlier grades I could perhaps introduce a new way of learning the alphabet, (I am going to post a picture of it on my blog) connecting each letter with Internet "world" words along with images, such as F for Facebook and G for Google. Plenty of ideas out there and I am hoping to gather a lot more during this course!
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