10 Tips to Keep Teaching Fun For You And Your Students

Teaching and learning day in and day out can get cumbersome for teachers and students alike. Thankfully, we’ve got ten tips to keep teaching fun for you and your students. 

1. Change the Scenery

Classrooms can get boring, especially when they are a part of a daily routine. Choose a day to take the routine out of learning and change the scenery. Take your students to do a group assignment in the school library. Take them on a knowledge-filled scavenger hunt around the school. You could even find a nice quiet place to sit outside on campus to teach your lesson.

Changing the scenery offers a fresh and new perspective for your lesson, recharging everyone’s energy to get through the day. 

2. Use Technology

Technology has already made its way into the classrooms, and it is here to stay, so why not put it to good use. Whether you use tablets, laptops, YouTube, or even Netflix, you can successfully use technology in a classroom setting.

A popular way teachers have incorporated technology into their classrooms is by using the popular website Kahoot. Teachers make a multiple-choice game that students can answer from any electronic device. If you don’t feel tech-savvy enough to make web games, showing short video clips or creating a PowerPoint presentation is also a great way to meet your student’s visual instructional needs. 

3. Use Visuals

Sometimes you need to see something to understand it better. Visuals can be posters used as decorations that students can see every day, a short video clip explaining the lesson, or even a diagram. Using visuals helps students make associations between materials, allowing them to soak up more learning content and functions as a memory aid.

4. Make Learning Hands-On

Hands-on learning is always fun. This doesn’t mean you have to develop an arts and crafts project for every lesson, but you also don’t need to be super creative. Making your lesson hands-on could be as simple as turning your question and answer portion into a game. This game could include hand buzzers to answer questions, a race to the whiteboard to write down the correct answer, or a simple craft project. An action-oriented project is a great in-class study method for students. 

5. Act It Out

You don’t have to wear a costume (but wouldn’t it be fun to incorporate one)! When you’re excited about the lesson, your students will be too. Adding emphasis to your lectures or incorporating a story related to the lesson is a great addition to the classroom; many English classrooms already use readers theaters or other types of content, other subjects can too. 

6. Use Real-Life Examples

Studies have shown that students learn better and retain more material using real-life examples. These examples don’t have to be personal, just relatable. Even if it’s as simple as using something they like to solve a math problem or relating history to current events, the students will be more prone to listen and retain more information.

Using real-life examples will also create a safe space for the students to grow and learn more by asking questions.

7. Don’t Lecture, Converse

Although most lesson plans are structured to include lectures, they don’t have to be boring. Turn your lectures into conversations. This way, you get more class participation, and you can easily find out how and what your students think, but more importantly, what they know. 

8. Be Available

Students want to know if they ask you a question, they won’t be shamed or made to feel dumb. Never be too busy to explain something differently or more in-depth to students who need extra help. You are there to teach, and they are there to learn, don't squash that feeling to exploration. 

9. Put Yourself in Their Shoes

Do you remember what it was like being a student? Try to remember these feelings when you’re teaching. Everyone learns differently and at a different pace. Extend patience with your students and know they have a life outside your classroom.

10. Set the Atmosphere

Classrooms can seem bland and boring with large, cement, brick walls with little natural light. Bring some life to your classroom by adding some color. Select a theme for the year and use that to create an inspiring learning environment for your students. 

Final Thoughts

As you work to keep learning fun for your students, you too will have more fun teaching.

Written by Brianna Dinkins
Education World Contributor
Copyright© 2022 Education World