Certainly, it does not matter whether we are very serious teachers or not, or if we have always worked using the same approaches and methodologies, when considering as an ideal to get students' attention, we must get really creative! Even if we are working with a "simple" tool like Microsoft Word, we should "Never fear!" (Gookin, 1999, p. 342)to use colors, crazy themes, sounds, and all resources we have. For sure we will see the results quickly. We can just consider, what would be better and more attractive, a simple, flat document with no colors but black and white, and using a typical typeface or a nice document with interesting colors distributed throughout the pages, with pictures illustrating ideas, arrows connecting them and giving them a complete sense, and hyperlinks connecting many other sources? Easy to answer, students need interesting things because, if they do not get them from us, they will find them somewhere else (cellphones, mp3 players, etc.)Therefore, every time we are preparing materials we must get a bit crazy and innovative. For instance: - When introducing a topic for the first time, we could use ornate typefaces, with appealing colors, so pupils' attention would be automatically addressed to it. - When presenting categories, we can use bullets to show the hierarchy, the system in which ideas are developed, etc. Also, to connect concepts with examples, we can use arrows connecting them
Certainly, it does not matter whether we are very serious teachers or not, or if we have always worked using the same approaches and methodologies, when considering as an ideal to get students' attention, we must get really creative! Even if we are working with a "simple" tool like Microsoft Word, we should "Never fear!" (Gookin, 1999, p. 342)to use colors, crazy themes, sounds, and all resources we have. For sure we will see the results quickly. We can just consider, what would be better and more attractive, a simple, flat document with no colors but black and white, and using a typical typeface or a nice document with interesting colors distributed throughout the pages, with pictures illustrating ideas, arrows connecting them and giving them a complete sense, and hyperlinks connecting many other sources? Easy to answer, students need interesting things because, if they do not get them from us, they will find them somewhere else (cellphones, mp3 players, etc.)Therefore, every time we are preparing materials we must get a bit crazy and innovative. For instance:
ReplyDelete- When introducing a topic for the first time, we could use ornate typefaces, with appealing colors, so pupils' attention would be automatically addressed to it.
- When presenting categories, we can use bullets to show the hierarchy, the system in which ideas are developed, etc. Also, to connect concepts with examples, we can use arrows connecting them