Teacher Resources: How to Make Learning Fun With Teaching Strategies

While a student’s input is definitely essential, a good teacher can make all the difference. Teaching is an art and so every teacher is unique in their style.

Now, some teachers are naturally engaging and fun, making their subject appear interesting even to those students who don’t like it.

This is indeed a superpower. However, if you as a teacher don’t have such skills, there’s no need to worry. We’ve got you covered up!

Here are a few strategies to make learning fun — try these and take your teaching to the next level.

1)  Make your lessons engaging

No matter how interesting a topic might be, there’s still a high chance that your class will become dull if there’s a lack of activity. Engaging students is very important, not only for making the lesson fun, but also for the lesson to be effective.

Most students tend to lose their focus and drift into their imaginary worlds if they’re not repetitively engaged.

Therefore, if you’re used to delivering long, monotonous lectures, it’s time that you mend your ways. Here are a few tips to make your lessons engaging:

• Have frequent group or pair work in your class: Most students love to work in teams with their friends. They’re happy to discuss, share ideas, and think thoroughly about a topic when working together. This allows them to learn happily and remain engaged in the lesson.

• Ask thought-provoking and open-ended questions during the lecture: Questions like, what’s their favorite thing about the current topic and why? What do they feel about some personality in history or some character from the course novel? Different opinions will encourage discussion in class, making the class lively and the students engaged in the lesson. In addition, this will help you execute inquiry-based learning in your class, which is a very effective teaching strategy. You can learn more about it here.

2)  Use technology

The young generation is fond of smartphones and tablets, something you can use to your advantage.

The idea of using gadgets in the classroom might sound absurd to some as it will increase the already high screen time of children. However, if this is done correctly, it can help develop students’ interest in learning. Students will study for the sake of using gadgets.

Today, there are a lot of websites and apps that facilitate learning. Students not only find these interesting, but they’re also quite helpful. Photomath, Kahoot, and Quizlet are a few examples.

Other than this, while projectors have become a thing of the past, they still have the potential to make children happy. You can use one to show topic-related videos or any presentations that you have made.

3)  Conduct science experiments

Doing experiments is a great way of making learning fun. After all, how long can a person read the same old book and not get bored?

It might be far easier for you to tell your students the relevant scientific terms, teach them concepts through lectures, and ask them to make proper notes. However, this is not only ineffective, but also boring.

On the other hand, students are fascinated by solutions of different colors, scientific apparatus, and the atmosphere of a lab. Moreover, wearing safety goggles and gloves, and taking other safety measures give students a sense of adventure and subsequently increase their interest in the subject.

Finally, science experiments allow your students to see the concepts in action rather than memorizing a bunch of facts. Therefore, experiments support fun and effective learning and are an indispensable teaching tool today.

4)  Make the class atmosphere friendly

It’s very hard for students to have fun if you’re very strict. You might try a hundred different techniques to make your classes fun, but they’ll all be ineffective if your students don’t like you as a teacher.

So it’s important to try to become their favorite teacher. You can achieve this by having a relationship with your students. Talk to them about topics other than the curriculum, allow some friendly jokes in the class, and be kind towards them. However, make sure you do not break the class decorum in doing so.

5)  Fill your class with fun activities

What can make learning more fun than fun activities themselves? To start with, roleplays are real magic. Acting out play scripts or mimicking someone from history also helps to retain information better.

You can also combine your subject with games such as pictionary, hangman, scatter-gories, and charades. There are so many more examples. Plan your games well as they are also a very good source of learning. This is the time you have the greatest attention of your class.

Finally, you should consider using the arts to teach some topics. For example, you can ask your students to paint or draw the concept you’re teaching them, or create things from cartons, beads, color sticks, etc. This will not only make learning more fun, but also help in boosting their creativity!