25 Ways To Promote Passion-Based Learning In Your Classroom - Common sense tells us that students are more likely to learn if they are motivated by and engaged with the curriculum or project at hand.
Now, hard science is telling us the same thing. When students are passionately engaged in their learning - when they are mesmerized by their learning environment or activities – there are myriad responses in their brains making connections and building schema that simply would not occur without that passion or emotion. Much of what we ask kids to memorize has little emotional charge to it. Emotions can significantly alter the creation and recall of memories. People are better at remembering information that is emotionally charged rather than information that is neutral or flat. But aside from influencing emotion, passionate engagement can empower students to feel in control of their own learning. 25 Ways To Promote Passion-Based Learning In Your Classroom 1. 2.
Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement. A while back, I was asked, "What engages students? " Sure, I could respond, sharing anecdotes about what I believed to be engaging, but I thought it would be so much better to lob that question to my own eighth graders. The responses I received from all 220 of them seemed to fall under 10 categories, representing reoccuring themes that appeared again and again. So, from the mouths of babes, here are my students' answers to the question: "What engages students?
" 1. Working with their peers "Middle-school students are growing learners who require and want interaction with other people to fully attain their potential. " "Teens find it most interesting and exciting when there is a little bit of talking involved. 2. "I believe that when students participate in "learning by doing" it helps them focus more.
"We have entered a digital age of video, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and they [have] become more of a daily thing for teens and students. Pinterest. A Must See Visual Featuring The 5 Levels of Student Engagement. 10 Engaging Activities for Students Who Finish Work Early - Ferndale, MI. As a student, I was rarely the first to complete my tests or in-class exercises, but when I was, I held onto my work until it was collected.
Why? Because I didn’t want to be “rewarded” with more work; I didn’t want to select a time-killing ditto from the teacher’s filing cabinet. If I didn’t want to work on dittos while the rest of the students completed their work, I know that my students don’t either. I consider all 10 of the activities below to be creative, engaging and meaningful.
Here’s the rule I used when compiling this list: If I wouldn’t enjoy working on the activity myself, it didn’t make the cut. 10 Engaging Activities for Students Who Finish Work Early Newspaper Blackout All you need is a newspaper article (or any form of print media) and a Sharpie. For sale. Then he slid the napkin across the table and collected what was due to him. Using Hemingway as an inspiration, write a story in six words. *Wikipedia Start with an article related to a personal interest. Write on the windows…. Prior to becoming a teacher I did stand-up comedy on the side.
One time I was doing a show with a comedian by the name of Finesse Mitchell. After the show I asked him if he had any advice for me as a new comic. He looked at me, laughed, and said, “Hit ‘em in the first fifteen or lose ‘em in the first fifteen.” This meant that within the first 15 seconds of seeing the crowd you need to make them laugh or you would lose them for the rest of the show. I took that piece of advice and stored it for a long time. Once I became a teacher I applied this same strategy to the classroom, just not with comedy. During one lesson in particular, I asked the students a question and they responded in their journals. Shortly there after I gave the students another question except this time they were to work in groups and write their responses on the window.
Try it out and let me know your thoughts. Here is some more pictures from class: Like this: Like Loading...