Making learning fun
- Image via Wikipedia
In a lot of educational writing, it’s taken as a given that creating an atmosphere of fun in the classroom must inevitably lead to learning. It’s fair to ask what is the relationship between fun and learning, however from an evidential perspective.
This analysis leads you to develop a working definition of fun and what it looks like in the classroom so that we can say if we have more or less of it. This definition and quantification allows us to analyze the relationship between fun and learning as measured by quantitative assessments.
Reread those words and see if you can find any fun in them. Is there anything about that attitude that would make you want to attend the class from someone who thought in that way.
This is not to discount the importance of an objectivist approach to education and looking critically at the outcomes of your educational efforts.
I believe we can proceed with the assumption that people are social animals and that the atmosphere in which they find themselves in the classroom, particularly if this was not a matter of choice but one of policy, can go a long way towards improving the quality of their learning.
Our hypothesis is that of fun atmosphere will improve the probability that they generate the internal desire to learn which most people would agree is the basis for a lifelong love of learning that will sustain them once they leave our classroom area
Making things fun requires you to look at curriculum and the educational space through the eyes of your students and their preferred learning styles. We need variety, experiential learning, connection to the important matters of our times, alignment of the class lessons with the interests of our students to more fully engage their attention.
All of these things lead to fun in the classroom. Perhaps the most important contributor, though, is the personal attitude towards the class as expressed by the teacher and model than his or her behavior. If it’s not fun for the teacher, it it makes it that much harder for it to be fun for the students. If the teacher truly loves the math, then the math class will be fun and we’ll get through it with enjoyment and improve learning.
So, don’t neglect the outcomes-based evaluations of education, but don’t forget that where people and that we need to be engaged in courage and enthusiastic about our time in the classroom too.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Back to Teaching Reflection – Part 3 (haroldshawjr.com)
- How Laptops Can Enhance Learning in College Classrooms (usnews.com)
- Job Opening: Assistant Director, StreetsEducation (openplans.org)
- Technology in the classroom simms (slideshare.net)
- Theory Of Experiential Learning Fields[1] (slideshare.net)
- Module6 (slideshare.net)
- Jarvis learning process theory (slideshare.net)
- Thoughts from Joel Dodd – Cultures old and new (ictelt.blogspot.com)
- State Leaders to Present Roadmap for 21st Century Classroom and Teacher Training (prweb.com)
- Imagining a mobile Moodle (ialja.blogspot.com)
- Reflecting on self-directed leadership in a military college environment (an action research approach) (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- Update on the Force Generation wiki and Student Text 525 (usacac.army.mil)
- A system that relies on individual initiative (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- Erasmus: the last educated man? (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- Advice to an aspiring young leader (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- Reflecting on scenario support to CGSC, TRADOC and the Army (usacac.army.mil)
- A reflection on leading and managing a complex Participatory Action Research curriculum project (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- A reflection on self-directed education and doctoral programs (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- Education advice for new traders (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
- culture and climate (kansasreflections.wordpress.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png)
kansas reflections 
The above reminds me of Miyamoto Musashi in the 17th century, and samurais in the end of Edo-era. You may know that in Musashi’s days, about 1600AD, samurai-swordplay was an art of fighting in battle fields, though, for more than 200 year peaceful days in Edo-era, they samurais had seemed to learn their swordplay in training halls, with a “shinai”, a bamboo-blade which is made for only training instead of a “katana” used in actual fights which had not yet been devised in Musashi’s days. About 1600AD, in Japan, a “bokutou”, a wooden-blade was used for samurai swordplay training. Some that experienced kendou, may know how painful when one was hit with a “bokutou” although not so painful when hit with a “shinai”—-it only sounds far louder. In a result, after 1850AD, lots of samurais were so strong as Musashi, but samurai-swordsmanship had been way behind times in the 19th century world. Now modern days, for the training of kendou, a “shinai” is generally used, and learners enjoy it. Of course, those students forced to learn kendou by their parents or someones, would be painful when training kendou.
i love Samurai Rebellion with Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai as samurai in a Peaceful era, whose swordplay is limited to the shinai, (until the climactic final scenes). very powerful movie
I love to talk about samurai movies with you, but I wrote the above comment in the context of “fun-learning.” If a student wants to learn playing the role of a samurai in a movie, he will use an imitated katana to learn “tate”, samurai-swordsmanship in a movie or in a living theater.