I realized too late that I had not been utilizing this tool enough, though. I took a page from Rowdy's book after watching his class, and played some advertisements for my students to analyze. That was my best class. Even though they hadn't seen the ads before, and even though they didn't particularly like them, it resonated with them as relevant and important, and I hadn't yet seen my students so engaged. Early in the semester it felt like I had so much to fit in and so little time to do it, and I was afraid that anything I was bringing in was detracting from precious learning time, but now I wish that I could go back and start taking a bit of time each class to give the students some pop culture fragment to lead them into the lesson, because I've found that the interest it sparks can carry over for a whole class (or at least most of it.) Just a taste of something from their out-of-class world could keep their gears turning for quite a while, and I was able to redirect some of that interest and energy toward learning communication.
Next semester I am going to challenge myself to take something entertaining from the front page of reddit, imgur, or youtube every day of class, present it at the beginning, and find a way to work it into the lesson for the day.
#Highclass 🎩
Garret, I think one unique challenge we face as teachers are the five-second attention spans young people have developed. They are now accustomed to receiving tons of stimulus in like five second increments. Sitting in a classroom for "only" 50 minutes seems to be a real exercise of endurance for most of them. I see it, too--the clock watchers!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I want to do that I didn't do this semester is incorporate the Question of the Day in the sign in sheet, as like a quick way to get into their minds a little bit.