Submitted by Clara Elder (not verified) on February 13, 2008 - 18:40.
After reading your three part series, I agree that learning should be relevant to students' lives. Student apathy is an ongoing problem in the classroom. If we as teachers don't find a way to get students to take their learning seriously, then all of our efforts are in vain. One of the best ways to get students interested is to make their learning relevant to their lives. I teach high school science, and I find that when I can tie content in to what is going on in the news or something that students have a strong interest in, students get a lot more out of the lesson.
Another good way to get students to care about their work is to make the lesson fun. Using hands-on activities will get students involved and will lead to more success. After conducting labs about cells and DNA in class, I have had students ask numberous questions about those topics, truly wanting to know more. I think the idea you presented about West Nile is an excellent example of a hands-on project.
We as teachers need to do better at making learning relevant to students' lives and fun and interesting in order to keep students involved and caring about their learning.
Relevance and fun combat student apathy
Submitted by Clara Elder (not verified) on February 13, 2008 - 18:40.
After reading your three part series, I agree that learning should be relevant to students' lives. Student apathy is an ongoing problem in the classroom. If we as teachers don't find a way to get students to take their learning seriously, then all of our efforts are in vain. One of the best ways to get students interested is to make their learning relevant to their lives. I teach high school science, and I find that when I can tie content in to what is going on in the news or something that students have a strong interest in, students get a lot more out of the lesson.
Another good way to get students to care about their work is to make the lesson fun. Using hands-on activities will get students involved and will lead to more success. After conducting labs about cells and DNA in class, I have had students ask numberous questions about those topics, truly wanting to know more. I think the idea you presented about West Nile is an excellent example of a hands-on project.
We as teachers need to do better at making learning relevant to students' lives and fun and interesting in order to keep students involved and caring about their learning.