Teachers are hostages to the school system. But to the best of their ability, they, too, can help children be productive.
- Age-appropriate.
We already know that each age has its own leading activities. At the preschool age, it’s play. When children come to first grade, this activity still stays with them. Therefore, it will be easier for them to gain knowledge through play.
For high school, collaborative projects are good. In adolescence, the leading activity is communication. The more collaborative work with classmates, the better. This will not only increase productivity and digestibility of the material, but will also pump up communication and teamwork skills.
- Try to engage
Children in elementary school have a hard time focusing on one thing for longer than 20-30 minutes. To keep them focused in class, what the teacher is talking about should be much more interesting than the crow outside the window. The lesson should not be monotonous, and the teacher should be able to switch students’ attention: from the board to the teacher’s action, from the teacher’s action to the demonstration material.
The older children get, the more opportunities they have to concentrate. But at any age the key to attention is interest. If a student finds the teacher boring, he or she will already come to class with their attention turned off. Of course, the teacher is not a funny animator, his task is to teach, not to entertain. But it is possible to interest in different ways of presenting information. The lesson should capture and give something new and unexpected.
- Use modern technology.
One way to make a lesson more interesting is to use trends and modern technologies. For example, virtual reality helmets or interactive panels.
In virtual reality, the student is not affected by external stimuli. He is not distracted by extraneous things and concentrates on the material. VR also increases engagement: students can conduct safe chemistry experiments, see remarkable historical events and solve complex problems in a more entertaining and comprehensible game form.