The How-Tos of a Teacher-Boss on How to Keep Your Subject Fresh & Interesting
In the era of Netflix and HBO, is teaching becoming more like an entertainment show? When it comes time to prep for class, it’s more like a rehearsal to entertain. The TV has become our go-to friend throughout the coronavirus. We have welcomed new TV series and programs like a new member of the family, fascinated by the Tiger King and on the edge of our seats through Your Honor. Yet, with so much choice out there, getting people to keep watching a new program is tough – attention spans have decreased, and expectations have increased… so if you haven’t hooked people in straight away, they’ve switched off, moved on to something else.
Prep for Class… Or Entertainment?
Hmm… sounds quite like the classroom, doesn’t it? How do you prep for class in a world where we communicate our thoughts in 140 characters on a tweet? Or in snaps like Snapchat where our pictures disappear as quickly as they appear? Everything has become about instant gratification and instant entertainment and with that comes an expectation for everything to be big, and bold, and in your face, including education.
In fact, research has shown that in the last twenty years, the average attention span has dropped by four seconds. In 2000, the average attention span was 12 seconds, but now, the average attention span is 8 seconds. This article here in yourteenmag.com tells you more about this, as well as the fact that the average 16-year old can focus for between 48 – 80 minutes. Now, to me, that’s actually quite a long time – but it also suggests that the focus dwindles throughout that time, so really, this is the max – and that’s reliant on you really, really keeping them interested and entertained…. easy, eh!
So how do we keep things fresh and interesting? Here are some ideas for you.
1. Mix things up in bite-sized chunks
Ever wondered why people talk about TV series more than films nowadays? The world of entertainment and technology has changed and with it, so has our attention span, people are glued to their phones, getting their news from Twitter, and flicking between social media sites. That’s not to say that people don’t concentrate on anything anymore, but it does mean that people engage and focus better for short periods of time.
From a teaching perspective, this means short 10–15-minute sessions and making use of all the resources around you….and not just the usual ones, get creative, think about what you find entertaining and why? Is it something that makes you laugh? That shocks you. Makes you think. Well, your students are the same – if you want to engage them it’s time to stop being predictable and make things interesting.
2. Get Competitive
Gaming has become one of the national favorite hobbies in recent years, with teenagers and adults glued to their Xbox, Playstation, or Apps for hours on end. Some people like group games working together to achieve something and others like to compete against each other or themselves.
So, let’s take this into the classroom. There are literally hundreds of opportunities for students to get involved in – local competitions, regionals, nationals, and options for individuals and classes alike. Kudoswall has some great links that show you all the different competitions going on in writing, philosophy, science, sports – whatever your subject area there’s something for you.
Or maybe you want to have an in-house competition instead – work collectively with the teachers in the school to set up a class-against-class competition of who can raise the most money for a charity or create the best collage of photographs that showcase remote learning. There are lots of different ways to create healthy competition, and if you can make it a collective class effort, right now it might help foster and build some community spirit within the classroom that can really help support people who have been feeling socially isolated during these difficult times.
3. Read the Room
We’ve all been there…delivering a lesson and a few minutes in we think ‘hmm, I’ve not got this right’ perhaps the level was too difficult, the context too abstract and unrelatable or something else. Either way, you can see it a mile off, you’ve lost the room. Well, don’t be afraid to accept defeat and move on.
Yes, we all have strict timetables to follow an extensive curriculum to follow, but if you are delivering to a brick wall in terms of engagement, you are only going to have to revisit this topic again anyway for anyone to learn – so sometimes it’s ok to throw in the towel and move on to something else.
This is when you need to pull one of your back pocket lessons out of the bag. A go-to, fun, and entertaining activity that you know works for bringing attention back to your class. Concentrate on it being something fun, maybe a pop quiz, or a virtual tour video into the jungle or to a country on the other side of the world, let the students choose where they want to go.
4. Bring in the fun
It is important to build a professional relationship with your students and make sure that they understand the boundaries. But sometimes in an attempt to make sure things stay professional, we can confuse this with making things stuffy and a bit serious. When I was in high school, my favorite subject was math and I remember my teacher used to throw a ball around the classroom when choosing someone to answer a question – it never occurred to me what he was doing at the time, but I remember thinking it was fun, and hoping he’d throw the ball at me. Thinking about it now, that’s the complete opposite of what I felt in some other classrooms, where all I thought was – please don’t pick me!! Looking back, I now realize that he was doing this to get everyone to contribute, and get everyone to concentrate, and to make sure that it was an inclusive learning experience with limited opportunity to lose concentration.
Now, the reason that teacher used a football was that he loved the sport, so there was a bit of him in that approach, a bit of personality…it wasn’t forced, it was natural, and it worked.
So, think of things that keep things fresh and fun that would work for you, and would work for your class, everyone loves a game (even high school students who sometimes like to think they’re too old for games!).
In a world where we can be entertained at the click of a button and have become creatures of limited attention spans it has never been more important to get people to stop and pay attention, rather than continuously clicking next, next, next!
So, is teaching becoming more like an entertainment show in a Netflix and HBO era? Well, that’s up to you, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with bringing a bit of entertainment into the classroom.
