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Getting the students interested in their learning is a challenge in the Education field but specifically how can we get students interested in science? And once we have their interest how do we keep their interest/attention?
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Hey Pedro,
I could not agree with you more when you comment how it can be difficult to get students interested in science. I think that this is a challenge that many teachers face no matter what age group of students he/she educates. I feel that one of the most effective ways to get students interested in science is to perform experiments and hands-on activities in the classroom that are fun and engaging. For example, for young students teachers could have sand and water tables. For the sand table, educators could place various objects under the sand for students to find and give them different materials to explore, such as funnels, sand wheels, and shovels. One specific activity for the sand table could be having students pretend that they are paleontologists looking for dinosaur bones in the sand while using different scientific tools, such as brushes, magnifying glasses, and tweezers. Another way to get students interested in science is to take them on various field trips, such as to a zoo, aquarium, or science center. Teachers could also invite scientific guests into the classroom to discuss their work. Students always find it more interesting when someone else visits the classroom. Finally, teachers can explain to students how science is everywhere and that it is an integral part of their everyday lives. I feel that when students can relate things to their own lives, it is more meaningful. In reference to keeping students interested, I would recommend to continuously use the suggestions I listed above in one’s classroom. In other words, teachers should always try to plan field trips and hands-on activities as much as possible.
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Pedro,
I believe that sometimes this is very hard due to their past experience or lack there of. i believe the the first way to start it is to get students to realize how proiment science is to their everyday life and how it is all around them. Once they start realizing it, i believe then you can start showing them all the cool things with science ( like color changing experiments) to gain and keep their interest. Once you have that, i feel that continuing to teach them science and different things will keep their interest as long as you're consistent.
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Pedro,
I believe that sometimes this is very hard due to their past experience or lack there of. i believe the the first way to start it is to get students to realize how proiment science is to their everyday life and how it is all around them. Once they start realizing it, i believe then you can start showing them all the cool things with science ( like color changing experiments) to gain and keep their interest. Once you have that, i feel that continuing to teach them science and different things will keep their interest as long as you're consistent.
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Hey Pedro. I would recommend anything fun but change it up so it doesn't get boring and run down. If it's younger ages then do videos or experiments. Older kids maybe have them act it out and play roles.
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Hi Pedro! I am studying to be a teacher at the University of Northern Iowa. I am currently taking a Science methods course. We have discussed this deeply in class. Engaging students can be a challenge! One way that we are learning about right now and I am a big fan of is using phenomena in your science lessons. A phenomenon that you use could be anything that students come across in their every day life. For example, some of my classmates and I just created a lesson using the phenomenon, shadows. We introduced the phenomenon by showing students a shadow puppet video. When you introduce students to a phenomenon that they notice in their every day life, it not only engages them, but it also motivates them to try to figure out what causes this phenomenon. The next generation science website has very helpful tips and ideas to on how to use phenomenons in your classroom. I hope this information helps. Best of luck to you!
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Hi,
Everyone has great ideas! I think in order to get the students attention, a good way is to have an activity that they all can participate in and have fun with, which will grab their interest. Once the activity is done, you can talk a little about the science concepts that were involved in the activity. For example, in our science methods course, we have done several activities that get the students up moving around and doing fun things, not sitting and listening, which sometimes can make students tune out. We have participated in an activity where we built a boat out of aluminum foil and then used pennies to see how many it could hold before it sank. Activities like this encourage the students to get involved and they may have fun adding pennies to the boat until it sinks. It holds their curiosity with the added element of competition. So, this may grab their attention, and then they may learn that 'hey, science is fun' which may keep their curiosity peaked as long as you can provide hands on activities they can have fun with.
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I think that the first thing you need to do in order to get students excited and interested in science is to show them how excited you are as a teacher about it. When you are interested, most likely the students will be interested as well. Next thing is to get the students involved. Have student based inquiry where the students are the ones doing the experiments and figuring out their own questions. You can guide them into what they need to learn by introducing them to new and interesting topics, but ultimately they should be the ones figuring it out for themselves because that is when the most learning and engagement will occur. It may take some planning, but the students will have more fun and be more engaged in every lesson when they know they can take some control in their learning.
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Hi,
I've found that the classes/subjects that I am most interested in, is due to the fact that the teacher is excited about it! By simply showing excitement yourself about the topic, students will become interested. Science has so many fun experiment opportunities for a classroom to explore! Students can learn hands-on to learn! A fun experiment that we did in my current science class was exploring sinking or floating. Each group had their own container of water and several objects to test. We recorded all of the results and compared what was happening and why. This is just one example of many ideas!
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Hello,
I agree with you that it can be a challenge to get students excited about science, but I think one way to get students excited is to ask them what they want to learn more about and ask them what they are interested in. By getting input from the students, it can help you plan lessons that the students can get excited about. If the students feel like what they have to say is important, then they will feel valued and want to learn. If we listen to our students, we will find they are curious about a lot of topics and want to learn more about those topics. By having the students come up with topics to study, they will want to stay engaged because it's a topic they actually want to learn more about. I think that by having students more invovled with what their learning will help them be excited about science and stay engaged througout the lessons.
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Hello,
I found that a way to get the students interested in lessons in general, especially science, is to pretend that you love this lesson. If you know from precious years that students struggled or were bored with a certain topic, work hard on making the lesson interesting! Also, it would help if you introduced the subject by saying, 'this is one of my favorite lessons of all time!' It could also help to make the lessons student centered and hands on. Students are more interested in lessons and learn more when they are working with their hands. I hope this helps!
Jaime Newman
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