Connect It

“Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, related it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.” (Chickering & Gamson, 1986) Reading this quote made so much sense to me. I've already talked about how as a teacher we need to have our students get up from their seats and get them involved in the learning process. But something I never really thought about that this quote mentions is to apply past experiences to their present everyday lives. When we make the connect of the lesson to something they are familiar with in their lives, they will remember it so much better. They'll even find it interesting and meaningful. Students will find purpose in what we are teaching them and won't think we are teaching them stuff they will never use or need.

Why Engage Students in Learning?

Why should we as teachers engage students in learning activities? This question might seem kind of obvious. You might say, so students can learn from what we are teaching, and that's true. But I'm going to give you a few more reason why it's important to engage our students. Number one, by engaging students in learning activities it increases learner’s retention and understanding of contents. What this means is that when students are focused on the lesson activity you are presenting, they will remember and keep in their memory what you are teaching. They will also understand the lesson better if you have them engaged. Number two, it improves students attitudes in the classroom. I know when I was in elementary school some of my teachers were dull and wouldn't involve me in the lesson and I would get bored. Being in that uninteresting classroom would put be in a bad mood, I just wanted to get out of there. Number three, it increases students attention span. When you make the lesson plan or lesson activity interesting and attractive students will give us their attention. We all know that students have low attention spans, so why would we not try to make the lesson appealing to them? Last but not least number four, engaging students in learning activities increases student skills such as critical thinking and communicating. Students will learn these valuable skills when they are engaged in what we are teaching.