It is no secret that we live in a digital age. Phones, tablets, and computers are more accessible to students than ever before. Although mobile phones mean parents can text children rather than tell them to come home when the streetlights turn on, they do have drawbacks when it comes to the classroom.
Because children are used to 30-second TikTok’s which quickly fill them with facts or trivia, they’re becoming disengaged with older learning methods; like watching a presentation or reading a book. This makes it harder for teachers to ingrain information into a student whilst keeping them entertained.
So, in a rising world of screens, how do we keep our students involved while in the classroom? In this article, we’re going to share with you how you can get your classes to put down their iPhones and get engaged with what you have to teach.
The Old-School Approach
The best way to encourage communication is through teamwork. Although sports have previously been an answer to this, they can cause an ‘us vs them mentality. If we want to encourage friendships in the classroom, then we need to promote collaboration over competition.
Puzzles and activities are great for this, especially ones that require teamwork for success. Research projects work especially well. They urge students to spend more time in the library and push them to get together over the weekend.
If your students are forming new friendships and can trace those friendships back to your classroom, then they’ll automatically see the class as more fun. Although a child’s education comes first, they’ll be more willing to learn and more likely to interact in lessons if they see it as an enjoyable activity over a learning exercise.
Creativity is Key
In our opinion, students learn best when they’re creating something, whether that’s a Coca-Cola volcano for their geography studies or a painting in art class. When students are creating things, they become involved in that project. They stop thinking of the task at hand as a task and start enjoying the process.
When we enjoy something, we’re more likely to be interested in it. When we’re interested in something, we’re more likely to want to learn about it. As musicians, we might be biased, but we believe that music is the perfect example of this.
Many adults still recite the alphabet as a song in their heads. Just like we might not be able to remember what we had for tea yesterday, we can remember every lyric from our favourite song. Music helps us to remember key information, and creating music takes this even further.
If you can get your students to create music together, then you’ll ignite a new passion in them, a passion that could become a life-long career. You don’t need a big budget for this. Even getting your students together with brass instruments and making them collaborate as a band enforces the teamwork that we mentioned in our first point.
Inspire Your Student’s Creativity Today
In the digital age we live in, it has never been more important to find new and creative ways to engage students. This engagement is exactly what we offer your school.
We come to you and record music with your students. We give them a selection of songs to sing, record the audio of them singing, and professionally mix this audio so that it sounds good enough to be on the radio. Once this music has been mixed and mastered, we process the music into CDs which are then bought by your student’s families.
From the moment of the initial booking, we will help you promote these CDs. We keep track of this throughout the process so that we already have an idea of how many CDs you are going to sell before the day of recording, this means your day with us will always result in profit for your school.
If this process sounds seamless, then that’s because it is!
Not only does this raise the spirits of your students with a fun and engaging day, but it also allows you to raise school funds. We would love to visit you, inspire your pupils, and help you raise more money which can then be reinvested into their education. Click here to start this process today. The contact form takes a few moments, but the memories made with your students will last a lifetime.