Today I covered for a regular classroom teacher. The class was studying a battle in the American Revolution, Language Arts vocabulary, and the area of a cube. None of the students wanted to listen to me. No one wanted to do the workbook pages. I read the text in the Social Studies book. I made it sound as interesting as possible. I gave them my own interpretation. I made real world connections. It was time to complete the worksheet. No one had any clue how to answer the questions. They didn't pay attention to a word I said.
Do you think if I had shown a YouTube video on the passage the students would have paid attention? What about if I had dressed up as the military leader we were talking about? What if they were able to visually see what I was trying to read to them in images? Technology makes things real for them. Textbooks are 2D, technology can be 3D.
Given the opportunity I would have had them create a hands-on project. Maybe have them work together on a Google Slideshow creating each scene we read about. What if they had coded the chapter in Tynker? They could have recreated one of the scenes using Ozobots or littleBits. Would they have paid attention to the lesson if I had presented the material in this manner? Probably.
Classroom teachers need to be encouraged to teach outside of the box, embrace students as makers, not just consumers. They cannot just be lectured to and be expected to learn. We need to incorporate hands-on, real world making activities into the curriculum.