Boredom affects everybody at some point in their life but it can be particularly prevalent in schools where children are supposed to be learning. Of course, once one child is bored they are likely to be disruptive and damage the learning process for everyone else.
That’s why it’s important to know how to eliminate boredom in any classroom, regardless of whether you are at the top facility for early learning Chatswood or even at university.
- Break Often
Children generally have very short attention spans. This is simply because there are so many other things going on that they are easily distracted. It can be hard for any teacher to compete with this instinct. Therefore, you shouldn’t.
Instead of worrying about children becoming distracted and bored, give them regular breaks. In this way, you can share small amounts of information and the break before testing their knowledge and moving on. You and the children will find it a more pleasurable experience.
- Interactive
It is also essential that you make every lesson as interactive as possible. This means involving the children in the lesson and getting them to do things. It’s not just about questions and answers. You need to engage with the children and get them to undertake physical activities that reflect what you are currently teaching.
It’s much harder to be bored if they are busy.
As part of the interactive process you should make sure that your children tell you what they have already learned, this stops repetition which invites boredom.
- Mix It Up
Perhaps one of the best ways of eliminating boredom in classrooms is to be aware of the signs and nip them in the bud. For example, as children start to become bored they will be distracted. That means staring out of the window, chatting with each other, or even slipping notes between them.
The moment you see even one child being distracted and starting to display signs of boredom you need to switch tact and change your teaching style. It can even be beneficial to change the topic briefly. This sudden change will keep students on their toes and help prevent boredom.
- Challenge Your Students
Students need to be challenged regularly in order to get the best from them. A basic form of challenging them is to give them tests to check what they have learned. But, if you are trying to avoid boredom in the classroom you may find a better approach is to challenge them to display what they have learned in some way or another.
Get the pupils into groups and allow them to work out a way of demonstrating the knowledge gained. It’s more fun than a traditional test, highlights knowledge gaps, and keeps the children engaged. That means no boredom.
You can also speak to parents and encourage them to find resources and worksheets that they can use with their children to challenge them and grow their knowledge outside of the classroom. When they have more knowledge, they will feel more confident in the subject area, and therefore engage more in the classroom with the lesson and their peers.
Regardless of age or ability, there are a range of helpful and valuable resources online to help your children with their learning development, homework, and support in specific subjects, such as DoodleLearning’s maths worksheets.
Of course, there will always be some children that struggle to pay attention. As a teacher, you can use them as your guide. If they remain interested, there is a good chance the rest of the class will too.