Becoming An Engaging Teacher

I believe that it is important to keep students engaged throughout the lesson and I need to start giving some serious thought about how I will go about doing this. I do not only want to learn a lot about teaching while I am at Bellwood-Antis, I want to teach the students in a way that they will remember. I want students to think back to their high school Ag. classes and remember the student teacher they had and think, "yeah, he might have started off a little bit rusty, but things got better as he went and we were always engaged and interested in what he had to say". Yeah, that might be a little bit of a hard goal to reach, but I think it would be cool if it happened.

In order to make a classroom engaging, the teacher cannot stay on the same topic without switching gears for 1 minute per age of the student (if the student is 17, a student will concentrate for about 17 minutes). Students who can just sit in the back of the room and not participate, will often just "zone out" and not be engaged with the rest of the class. For this reason, I believe that creating "pods" or groups of desks throughout the room is a good idea; "pods" give the teacher an easy way to walk around the room, making all students feel like they are in the front at some point. Having a question or two at the beginning of class that students work on whenever they arrive is a good way to start the thinking process as soon as they arrive.

Getting students engaged may not always be the easiest, but giving students examples of how the lesson will benefit them, will help spark their interests. Students do not want to learn things that they won't "use in the real world", so creating that bond between your lesson and the "real world" will help engage many students.

Getting students engaged whenever they are in the shop is not usually too difficult, but days in the classroom can seem long. Creating fun and interactive lessons that can be done in the classroom is something that I will need to start giving some thought as soon as possible.

I want students to enjoy coming to my class and be excited for what the next class has in store for them! I like to think about this, "If your students did not have to come to your class, would you be teaching too an empty room"?

Thanks,
Mike Swartwood