Engaging By Design

"A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil to learn 
is hammering on a cold iron."
-Horace Mann

As a 4-H leader, I often think about what I want my members to learn and how I can make it fun and engaging. Surely, learning about rabbit color genetics with Punnetts Square does not sound too interesting in the mind of an 8 year old 4-Her, but it certainly can be with the right instruction!

What do you want your students to learn? What material are we going to be able to cover today? How about a week from now? What is the end goal for this unit and/or lesson? It all starts with proper planning. I know that it will not take me an hour to design my very first unit, but I can at least begin to outline my ultimate goals.

Engaging the students is something that takes a lot of my time when I plan for 4-H meetings, but I know the kids enjoy it whenever they talk to me outside of the meetings wanting more information to expand their knowledge even further. That is one of the most rewarding parts of my position. I like how Dave Burgess said in his book Teach Like a Pirate, "Obviously, you can't serve people raw steak on a plate. However, that's exactly what some educators serve their students every day. Teachers like this walk into class with their raw, unseasoned content, plop it down in front of their kids and say, 'Eat it!' They don't bother to provide a side dish, and dessert is way too much trouble," (page 77).

This is where incorporating Burgess' Three Circle Model of Presentation, Content, and Technique/Method really comes into play. It is very important to think about those three areas when preparing to teach. 

Perhaps thinking outside the box and maybe incorporating some technology in the classroom will help engage students.Here is an article I have found that talks about technology and how it might actually be a way to engage your students. As an educator, we need to work on how we want to achieve our goals. If we did not need to put any effort into our lessons, even in an Ag Mechanics class, I know that I would get bored very easily.