To teach effectively you have to keep things interesting in class. It might look and sound easy to do but it’s actually more challenging than you might think!
Many teachers try to reinvent their approach and find new strategies on how to make teaching interesting both for themselves and their students as well.
Exerting effort as a teacher to make teaching interesting has fruitful benefits that teachers surely will appreciate over time. Not only will it make things easier for you in class, but it will also show how effective students are able to absorb all the learning you have instilled in them.
If students get bored, the same goes for teachers—I mean you teach your lessons over and over again year after year, right?
Nobody wants to do the same thing repeatedly as this can cause you to lose interest over time in what you’re doing, which you don’t want to happen. This is why it’s a must for you to find ways on how to do things differently to give you a fresh perspective every now and then.
Discovering new ways on how you can make teaching interesting is a win-win situation for you and your students. It can spark inspiration, creativity, and new ideas which is what we want to happen inside the classroom.
Teaching is not boring! You just have to tweak your teaching style and find what works for you and the next thing you know you’re enjoying it and your students are enjoying and learning something valuable from it at the same time as well.
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<<How do you keep your class engaging? Learn the best tips to keep your students engaged so you’ll have a productive class.
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How To Make Teaching Interesting: 10 Proven and Tested Tips For Teachers!
1.) Get To Know Your Students
Getting to know your students well actually has more benefits than you think. Knowing them at a more personal level will help you know how you can make teaching more interesting in the classroom, whether if it’s an actual classroom setting or an online class setup.
Ask them about their interests and hobbies. Ask them what they like, things that excite or motivate them, in this way you’ll get a hint of how you can construct your lesson contents and personalize them so that that it will surely take their attention from the beginning to the end.
If your lessons contain something that piques their interest, you’ll surely have them where you want them to be—learning with excitement!
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2.) Set a Class Goal Tracker
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It’s also best if you can set a target or goal for each lesson that you make and share them with your students so that they will be aware of their progress which will eventually motivate them to keep track of what they’re learning so far in your class.
By setting up a goal tracker, you can also get them more engaged by having surprises or rewards by the end of the lesson—everybody loves surprises or rewards this will keep them more engaged as they have something to look forward to by the end of the finish line!
And to make sure that you’re on track with your class goals and you’re making the most out of your time in class, utilizing a time timer is a good move that will have you saying, “checkmate”! This time timer from BeeZee Kids will put the fun in your timed activities and games!
This neat stoplight timer will help your students grasp the concept of time even without having to actually tell the time yet. and if you’re interested to browse other cool time timers for your classroom, you can check them out here!
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3.) Teach Like You’re Telling Stories
Kids love stories, so teaching like you’re telling an exciting story only makes sense to help keep teaching interesting for you and your students.
This is a sure-fire way to attract your students’ attention and to keep their focus for the whole duration of the class to the lesson. You also get to control the flow of your lesson through this tactic.
You can also initiate a role-play activity. They’ll get to exchange ideas and this exercise will also get them to interact with their peers which is very essential for a class to experience from time to time to help develop their social skills.
You also get to challenge their creativity and imagination through this method, especially if you let them create their own scenarios that would be relating to the current lesson in place.
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4.) Relate Lessons to Real Life
All kinds of classes can become boring at some point even for the teacher itself. This usually happens when the discussion just goes by the book and does not have any context relating to real life.
And if the teacher gets bored, what more for the students who are energy-filled and are always trying to find an outlet to let all that energy out?
Relating your lessons to real-life especially to your students’ life will spark their curiosity as they will have a deeper and actual understanding of what you’re trying to teach them. You’ll see the difference when you apply this method because they will be more confident as they have the experience or knowledge to back up what they’re bringing to the table.
Try to apply everyday life situations that you think they already know of or they are familiar with, for example, math lessons about fractions, you can relate cutting up a pizza, or baking measurements that will show them how the lessons are applied to real life.
And for lessons in science, simple experiments like putting oil in water or adding baking soda and vinegar together will give them a chance to observe how different elements act and react in their own states.
Relating your lesson contents to real life will also give them a gist of why they need to learn all these lessons that will definitely come in handy later on in their lives.
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5.) Make Lessons and Activities Interactive
Relating your lessons to real-life is a good move to keep teaching interesting, but creating interactive lessons that involve your students is way better!
Letting them take the reign is much better exposure for them to the lesson because you’ll get to understand how they understand it first. This will give you leeway on how you can approach them to better understand the topic you’re trying to teach.
Traditional lecturing can be boring at times, and to switch things up have them be the teacher for the day! Get them to prepare for a certain lesson for the next day, they will surely pay attention and you get a chance to sit down and be the student for a while and rest your aching feet.
Kidding aside, this can also help your students learn the topic in advance and share their thoughts and ideas that you might also need to hear for yourself.
You can ask them to work in groups this way they can be collaborative and exchange their thoughts regarding the topics being assigned to them, and then again this will help them socialize with their peers.
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6.) Make Use of Technology
Students nowadays learn through technology and one of the best ways to keep teaching interesting is by making use of it for your class. Since most students are now tech-savvy have them learn through it because they’ll surely engage and pay attention if the use of technology is involved.
You can have them use tablets and computers for tests and quizzes instead of the traditional pen and paper, you’ll also easily gather their answers and check them without having to go through their papers one by one.
With a portable wifi mini-projector, you can let your hands rest from cramps from writing long notes on the board for your students to copy, you can just easily show them a slideshow presentation instead of writing the whole lesson on the board.
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And for something out of the box, you can try out the Dremel Digilab 3D printer that’s going to be a showstopper for your class, you can let your students create anything from their imagination with this awesome gadget.
You can also let them try out fun apps that they can interact with as a class in a form of games that are actually quizzes. Some apps will even let you connect to your students, including their parents or guardians, in just a few taps.
Technology provides both convenience and accessibility while keeping your students more engaged resulting in an enriched learning experience in the classroom that students will surely find valuable later on in higher levels of education.
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7.) Outdoor Classes
Kids love to be outdoors and one sure-fire way to get them more interested than ever is by bringing the whole class outside for a real hands-on learning experience. This is very suitable especially if your current lesson or topic can be explored and observed outdoors.
Field trips will give you and your class a chance to explore and learn new things outside of the classroom and it’s the perfect opportunity for you to better explain your topic with them seeing what is right in front of their eyes.
If you’re a science teacher trying to teach your students about the life cycle of butterflies you can try visiting a butterfly garden to show them the different stages in the life of butterflies and what really happens in real life.
Students are also found to have increased retention of what they learn outside the classroom because it gives them a fresh perspective and outdoor adventures will always be exciting for them!
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8.) Invite New Ideas and Try New Things
Just because you’re already a teacher doesn’t mean that you will stop learning. You have to be an open cup ready to be filled with new ideas that will help you grow not only as a teacher but as a person yourself.
You can try picking up a new hobby or maybe attend workshops that you think can help you better yourself when it comes to teaching. By trying out new things and ideas you don’t stay stagnant with what you already know and you will less likely fall into a routine.
Give yourself the opportunity to go outside of your comfort zone, I promise, you’ll be thanking yourself later. Experience is the best teacher, and although change might seem intimidating at first it’s one way for you to grow and find new ways of how you can teach your class effectively while keeping it interesting.
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9.) Games and Lots of it
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No matter how old you are, you can’t say no to a game and you will surely engage your interest in it no matter what. Infusing your lesson with fun games will make your students learn without them even knowing it!
You can pick out any game as long as you think it will help them increase retention, absorb something valuable from it, and also keep things interesting in class. If learning is fun in your class, your students will surely love going to your class day after day.
To take it up a notch, try these answer buzzers from Learning Resource for your class! It will surely lead to a fun-filled educational frenzy that will have your students on their toes excited to participate and engage in a game show-style lesson. Just remember to give out stickers or candies to anyone who gets the correct answer to really keep them hooked!
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10.) Ask for Feedback From Your Students
Last but not least is for you to ask for feedback from your students, this may not sound that important but this will shift the way you teach and will surely keep your class interesting more than ever.
Asking your students to give their feedback will help you be a better teacher. This will give you a hint of how to pique their interest furthermore and you will also give yourself a chance to improve your teaching further and better.
You can try creating an end-of-week survey and ask for their feedback and suggestions regarding the lessons you went through for the week, or you can just simply advise them that they can leave anonymous notes on your desk anytime they feel like it.
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Conclusion
Being a teacher is like riding a rollercoaster. There are days where we laugh and there are some days we cry—but we all know that by the end of the day all our hard work is worth it. The best advice I can give to keep teaching interesting for both you and your students is to not take things too seriously.
Because the way you carry yourself will surely reflect on your students, if you love what you do, they will surely appreciate it and love it too!
But other than that, I hope you have a nice day ahead and just keep on being an awesome human! Also known as a teacher!
