The Timidly Techy Teacher

  How do we motivate unmotivated students to participate and learn in a classroom? To show up? Clean up? Do their best? Many times, we gamify a desired behavior to increase its appeal. This might look like playing music while students race a timer to clean up a room. (Mine have an ardent love-hate relationship with this one.) Or by playing a Kahoot or Jeopardy to help students engage in review material. Using game-like elements in non-game settings is a good way to define this kind of teaching hack, and studies show that it does have some positive benefits on student motivation, though it is limited.  Another game-like way to encourage student’s participation is through Game-based Learning. This kind of learning more closely parallels real-world situations through online simulation – think games like “The Oregon Trail” or “SimCitiyEDU.” Studies show a higher level of content mastery through immersive games like these.  I was fascinated by our stimulus material for...

In a traditional U.S. classroom, students come to school, listen to lectures, then go home to complete practice or application problems on their own. This works extremely well for…some students. But oftentimes, advanced students might be the only students engaging in the classroom lecture; or, conversely, they may become bored and disruptive. Additionally, struggling students who need more time or a slower pace may become lost and zone out. At home, the advanced students may whiz through homework that really isn’t benefiting them, or, those same students may see the assignments as unnecessary and not do their homework at all, resulting in poor grades despite proficient knowledge. The slower students may be unable to complete their assignment at home due to holes in their and their parents’ knowledge.  The flipped classroom changes all of this. Homework consists of recorded lectures and demonstrations made or compiled by the teacher. At home, students have full autonomy over the...