Finding Innovative Ways to Make Learning More Interesting
Mrs. Ringwald was such an inspiration to you. You thought that she talked funny. She had an accent. She was from Australia who migrated to the USA and became your teacher in middle school. That was years ago. She passed away a month before you headed out to college. At the funeral, you whispered to yourself, “I’m going to be like you, Mrs. Ringwald. A teacher. A great teacher.”
You fulfilled your promise, and you now find yourself standing in front of children seated restlessly on their classroom chairs. You’re just months into the job, and you have absolutely no regrets. You learned a lot from your degree at the university. But not every career challenge will have an answer from a college diploma.
You’re wondering about ways on how to make classroom learning more exciting or more innovative for children. That you are wondering would already make Mrs. Ringwald proud. It means you care deeply about your profession.
Background on Challenges
You won’t find on any top 10 list of challenges something that says, “making classroom learning more interesting or creative.” You will find the need to navigate between the various needs or inadequacy of students. Or to provide support to students to achieve long term learning goals.
But employing a successful teaching method will impact these other challenges positively.
Getting Creative
The strategies vary depending on the age of your students or the subject matter that you are teaching. But here are possible approaches for you to consider to make learning more interesting, engaging, and innovative.
- Look at the bright side always. The first thing that you need to do is to stay positive. Let Mrs. Ringwald and the rest of her great kind be your source of power and inspiration. That inspired feeling will be your students’ inspiration.
- Survey interest. Get your students’ pulse and find out what makes them tick. What are their interests outside of school? Do they watch the same kind of movies? The result of the survey can serve as subject matter input when you start teaching your lesson.
- Use visuals. Make it participatory. Provide children relief from focusing only on you while in front of the class. Use visual aids to retain their attention on the subject matter. Engage them in break-out group activities where each can participate. They can write their answers to a question using significant markers on half a sheet of paper. Members of the break-up group can then question each other about their response.
- Invite guests. Invite successful entrepreneurs or professionals to speak in your class. As kids are so connected with technology these days, someone working in the tech industry might excite your students.
- Emphasize cooperation. Emphasizing cooperation in a group activity is part of the many strategies teachers can employ. Giving children a puzzle to solve, for example, can be an activity as part of this strategy. Working together and understanding that everyone needs to contribute teaches them accountability.
Use technology to your advantage as part of your strategy. If your survey reveals that they all have iPads, your puzzle to be solved can be done on the iPad. There are other methods to employ, but the items on this list can point you in the right direction.