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Hi Elizabeth! I'm an elementary ed major at the university of Northern Iowa, and I'm taking a few classes right now that have talked a lot about the idea of keeping students engaged, among other things, obviously. The science methods course i'm taking right now teaches us how to make science more engaging to students, mostly through the use of the inquiry method, which lets students answer the questions themselves by either providing them with leading questions or let the students come up with the questions themselves. When students have to think to get the answer rather than just memorize it, it sticks in their brain more. I'm also taking a class called Arts Integration, where I've had a lot of practical experience in finding ways to get students engaged. Coincidentally, the 'content' that we focus on in each lesson with our students (we go to a local elementary school to do the lessons) is the concept of matter, in the form of solids, liquids, and gases. For each lesson we were expected to integrate visual arts, drama, and music and movement into our science based lesson plans. This forced us to be a lot more creative in our lessons and activities, and as a result the students were more engaged through most of the lesson, as we did activities that were arts-based in nature, which elementary students find very fun. So long story short, getting students engaged gets a lot easier when you integrate the arts into your content based lessons.
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