It makes perfect sense to hear that “student engagement increases when learning is fun”, and yet classwork and final exams can be some of the most dull and tedious moments of the learning process. Not at Indi-ED! One of the comments I hear most frequently is that teachers at our school can actually make learning fun, and it really isn’t that hard!
Our teachers consistently bring high energy, passion, and enthusiasm to the topics we teach, and that is because we are genuinely excited about what we are teaching. We are lucky to have the flexibility to teach to the students’ and teachers’ interests at our school, so the passion comes naturally. That is not to say that we only teach what we want to talk about (trust me, I have a dislike for grammar just as much as the most disgruntled students), but we do get to chose our approach, and gamifying a topic makes it more fun for students to learn, and more fun for the teacher to teach.
Turning the learning into a game is an easy way for students to get practice without the process feeling too tedious. For example, Mrs. Pethé uses math games for students to practice multiplication tables, and I just used the game Poetry for Neanderthals to reinforce syllables and utilize critical thinking & inference skills (the kids loved the opportunity to bonk each other with the inflatable club during the game).
Final products, assessments, and representations of learning can also be very entertaining.
My ELA students had to make an original scene adaptation from a book they read in Unit 1; they were allowed to make a video and screen it for the class, or they could create a theatrical adaptation and perform the scene in front of the class. In the end, I had multiple music videos, parodies, and a choreographed musical scene that incorporated students from the younger cohorts. For the rest of my life, I will remember the musical number “I Think I Love You” that a student created to fulfill their desire to see Rudy confess his love to Liesel at the end of The Book Thief, and I think all of the students that participated & observed the final product will remember the delightful adaptation for years to come as well.
There are plenty of websites that can support teachers in making learning fun, like Nearpod & Kahoot (especially if you have kids that are competitive by nature), and there are a lot of ideas on Pinterest and TeachersPayTeachers for ways to incorporate more fun in the classroom. I’ve used a rubber chicken to get people’s attention, we’ve done 60-second dance parties for brain breaks, teachers at Indi-ED aren’t afraid to dress up or look silly when it relates to the content, and we’re usually ready with a joke, jest, or really big smiles as students are sharing the results of their hard work. It fills my heart to hear a student share at the end of the day that their moment of joy was learning something new.
The next time you’re teaching, or learning, something that feels dull, ask yourself: “how can I turn this into a game? How can I have a laugh today?” Because that is the root of experiential learning: applying your knowledge to something else beyond the text-book lesson in the classroom, and if it is fun for you, even better.