Battling Boredom 99 Strategies To Spark Student Engagement By Bryan Harris

After reading through some of the experiences and ideas shared in this book I could relate some of these to my own classroom. At the beginning It talked about a student who did fit normal formal learning and thought 'school was boring', I can relate this to some of the students in my team at school. I have some students-boys who 'don't like reading' so I was interested to read about more ways to engage students.

Something I was already trying but am now more explicitly doing is using more video clips to reinforce the teaching of reading strategies. I have been using video clips (youtube clips) to reinforce or introduce my teaching. Students have found this engaging and enjoying learning from other experts/resources. From what I could observe students were engaged and followed what they were learning sometimes we would watch it twice so that the first time they could watch it and the second make more connections with what was being said. After asking the students what they thought they of this they said "The clips really help me to know what I am learning", "I enjoy watching videos", "I can look at it again it I am unsure", and "it makes the workshops more fun". My biggest challenge has been finding relevant and engaging video for students.

Another way I have been using video clips is through our science experiments. This has been a great way to introduce what we are going to do and to prompt discussion. While we are watching these sometimes I stop the video to discuss different ideas with the kids and also to see what questions they have. This has been a great way to get kids using new vocabulary from the video to then make predictions and to encourage them to be more curious. Students are then able to have a better understanding of the science concept too.

Here are some pictures from some of our experiments learning about density:

 

So far I have enjoyed reading some of these strategies and trying them in the classroom.