How to Catch the Students Attention!

Our 2nd teaching lab of the semester was the interest approach lab! We were tasked with creating a fun interest approach for one of out lessons for the spring. I decided to use an interest approach that I had planned for my 3rd lesson in my Pig Butchering Unit! This interest approach revolved around Bacon, so I was sure that it was going to get them interested!


The Title of my lesson was "What is the Process for Pig Butchering?". During this lesson, Students are going to be learning the steps that they are going to perform next week, when we butcher the pig. The Bell work for this lesson, is students recalling the 8 pork retail cuts that they learned yesterday. I want students to really know the breakdown of a pig on paper, before we get to the real pig. 

After the Bell Work, I introduced the Interest Approach, which was a puzzle activity. I had 6- 9 piece puzzles all shuffled together. So, there were 54 pieces but instead of making one puzzle, they made 6 puzzles. On these puzzles, were statements about bacon. I did not tell the students what was on the cards, but rather that they put the puzzle together by matching the words together until they formed the statement. I instilled some competition into my students by timing them and seeing how fast they could put all 6 of the puzzles together.

After completing this activity, I felt like the Lesson went Extremely well! I felt like their were some minor things to tweak, but overall I think it went as planned. Before doing this activity, I knew that there were many different ways to do this activity with different ranges of students. I decided to have the whole group do it together in lab, since there were only 3 of them. The classes that I am going to be teaching in the spring have 7 and 16 students in them. With these students, I will break them up into groups of 2 or 3 and have multiple sets of the cards. I think this is a very versatile activity that can be adjusted depending on your students. 

Some suggestions that I got from this lesson were to not minimize my activity, include a transition out of my bellwork, adjust my tone to not be so loud, use a timer that counts down to increase competition. I think these are all great things for me to work on in other lessons, as well as other things to implement when I teach this lesson in the spring. 


Some things that my pears thought went well were Excitement, clarity within the unit, organized, small victories for each puzzle, and keep the kids moving. These are also some of things that I noticed when I reflected on myself. I really felt good about my enthusiasm and small victories for each puzzle. These are some things that I wasn't necessarily planning for, but came naturally and I think really enhanced my lesson. 

I have definitetly seen some improvements in myself from last week to this week, and one of those was the nerves. I was not nervous at all and I think I allowed my excitement to take over, and maybe a little too much. I can totally see how I got too loud in different segments, but I would rather have that problem, then the other way around. This lesson was aimed to grab the students attention and I definitely think I did that, by getting them thinking about bacon and pigs, after just completing the challenge. 

Stick around to see what we teach next in a few weeks!

Paige 


Comments

  1. Brandon BixlerSeptember 21, 2023 at 7:36 PM

    Hi Paige, I feel fortunate that I got to be a "student" who got to participate in this interest approach for real! Your puzzle activity is very creative and I believe it is a great way to keep students engaged and challenge them to continue working hard with some friendly competition. One of the challenges of interest approaches is finding the balance of effectively reviewing the previous content while introducing the new in an engaging way, and I think you are clearly on the right track with this activity. I hope to be able to use something like it in my own class. Glad I get to grow along with you this semester.

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  2. Celia GraefSeptember 24, 2023 at 1:05 PM

    Hi Paige,
    I really liked watching your lesson because your activity was really creative and you were super engaged with the students the entire time. One thing that stuck out to me from your reflection was the comment of not minimizing your activity. This is one thing I have learned is super important from working with kids. If you introduce an activity with enthusiasm and excitement, the kids will be enthusiastic and excited about it. If you're not fully behind your lesson, however, the kids will know and they won't be nearly as into it. By having confidence in what you teach (or at least coming off as if you do), you are also preemptively avoiding students who choose not to participate or invest in the lesson because you're not giving them a reason to be disinterested right off the bat.

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  3. Noah PhillipsSeptember 24, 2023 at 2:21 PM

    It's great to see that you're actively reflecting on your teaching experience and identifying areas for improvement. You had a successful lesson overall, but you're open to fine-tuning it for future sessions. Overall, your reflective practice is a valuable tool for your professional growth as an educator. Keep adjusting and refining your lessons based on feedback and your own observations, and you'll continue to excel in your teaching role.

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