Last week, a group of science teachers told me their
students have a hard time memorising scientific definitions.
I approached this problem considering they were probably not
engaging all their learners senses while they were
teaching--that they were most likely just lecturing, reading
from the book, or having them copy from the blackboard.
One Law of Learning states that you should "Stimulate All
Senses" (visual, auditory and bodily). So here's what I did:
I had one teacher state a scientific law she was teaching.
She said, "The Law of Conservation of Energy states that
'energy is neither created nor destroyed.'" I took a blank
sheet of paper and wrote the sentence down. Then I tore the
paper into pieces, with one word on each piece. I then gave
the pieces of paper to one teacher and asked her to
re-assemble the sentence. (You should have seen the smile
appear on her face.) She quickly put it together while her
colleagues looked on in excitement. After that, I took the
pieces back and gave one piece to each teacher. I had them
assemble the sentence as a group on the table. Then I asked
them to construct the sentence as a team orally, each
teacher saying her word in turn. After, I made them do a
line up at the front of the room-every teacher took one
piece of paper and they lined themselves up in the order of
the words in the sentence.
One activity--so many ways to do it. And that too, while
stimulating all the senses. These types of activities
increase the chances of the learners learning the content.
They also increase interaction and develop interpersonal
skills.
