Effective Teaching Strategies to Start Lessons
Teaching Techniques to Increase Student Motivation for Learning
Oct 15, 2009
Students will, for the most part, gladly participate in the class, as long as the teacher creates an environment that inspires their imagination, directs their intellect, and fosters productive discourse on the subject material.
Presuming the teacher is prepared with academic information and has a regular routine with nearly seamless segues, it will not be difficult to reach his or her group of learners with an effective lesson every day. This article is not intended as a how-to plan for preparing a lesson, but rather to reveal a few tricks of the trade that might help in delivering the lesson to the class.
When Teaching and Technology Don’t Mix
In the age of computers and high tech PDAs, virtually every child has access to television, violent computer games and aggressive music at any given hour. Unfortunately, young people are notorious for their lack of discipline and they will indulge their appetites for all of these things, until the things lose their appeal. Most media addressed to children is fast paced and thoughtless, with quick edits and rushing sweeps between scenes. So when a child has spent the last evening and part of his morning killing zombies or dodging bullets, he is not as likely to have much interest in school work.
As a teacher it’s hard to compete with killing zombies.
Focusing Student Interest
There is no single right way to begin a class. However, taking a moment to ponder a topic, read a short passage, or think about a word problem will help to focus the class on the lesson. The instructor may want to do this in small groups.
Lateral thinking puzzles can be fun and extremely engaging for any age. These kinds of puzzles or riddles have a wide variety of application. They can be used to inspire logical thought processes, help in conceptualizing timelines, or to visualize exercise.
A short story is often a good way to generate a sense of empathy for a group of people, or to understand the effects of a profound event. It can also get the collective imaginations going. Having the students draw an illustration of a scene from a book the class is reading or an event from history can be an effective way to focus their attention on the lesson.
Once the teacher has captured the student’s curiosity, he or she must direct it towards the lesson.
Designing a Truly Integrated Curriculum
Whatever a teacher does to get the students initially engaged in the class should be designed to support the lesson. The relationship may be in the content or in a skill necessary to participate in the lesson, but it should be rooted in the context of the lesson.
Teachers should not just read an unrelated short story to get the creative juices flowing. That can be confusing to the student who is looking for the main idea in the lesson. The student should feel consumed by the main idea of the lesson. They should feel drenched in it. The teacher should make everything relate to that theme or main idea. It’s a little work getting prepared, but it makes each lesson more enjoyable for the students and easier to present for the teacher.
These are only a few ideas that have been proven to work in the past, but each teacher is better equipped to apply his or her own imagination to the above model.
Engaging student curiosity at the beginning of the class and then drawing that curiosity into the lesson are the first necessary steps to delivering an effective lesson every day.
Related article:
How an Effective Teacher Starts the Day
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