How Do You Provide Rigor While Keeping It Fun and Exciting for Students?
The provision of rigor in the educational landscape does not necessitate a sacrifice of joy or excitement for students. In addressing the query posed by educators at the National Teacher Leadership Conference in Orlando, I elucidate that student engagement serves as the pivotal bridge connecting rigorous learning with enjoyable experiences. By fostering real-world connections, establishing cultural relevance, and incorporating choice-driven learning, we can cultivate an environment where students are not merely compliant participants but enthusiastic learners invested in their educational journeys. Moreover, the integration of dynamic activities, such as games and project-based tasks, further enhances the vibrancy of the classroom, transforming challenging content into captivating experiences that resonate deeply with students. Ultimately, I contend that the synergy of rigor and enjoyment is not only possible but essential for fostering a thriving educational atmosphere.
The dialogue presented by Mr. Nicholas Kleve on the subject of balancing educational rigor with student enjoyment is both insightful and pragmatic. Addressing a pertinent question raised during the National Teacher Leadership Conference in Orlando, Mr. Kleve elucidates the strategies educators can deploy to ensure that the pursuit of rigorous academic standards does not compromise the enjoyment and engagement of students. He posits that the key to achieving this balance lies in fostering an environment where engagement serves as the bridge that connects the two realms. When students are deeply engaged in their learning, they are more likely to perceive rigorous tasks as invigorating challenges rather than burdensome obligations.
Central to Mr. Kleve's approach is the idea of establishing real-world connections within the curriculum. He emphasizes that when students can see the relevance of their studies to their own lives and the larger society, their investment in learning increases significantly. Furthermore, he advocates for culturally relevant pedagogy that resonates with students' backgrounds, thus enhancing their connection to the content. Another pivotal aspect of the discussion is the incorporation of choice-driven learning, where students are encouraged to take ownership of their educational experiences through inquiry-based projects.
Mr. Kleve also provides practical examples of how to make the classroom experience both rigorous and enjoyable. He shares innovative activities such as gamification of lessons, collaborative projects, and real-world simulations that capture students' interests while maintaining high standards of academic rigor. The concluding thoughts of the episode reinforce the idea that the journey of education is not solely about mastery but about the growth that occurs through overcoming challenges. By instilling a mindset that values perseverance and celebrates productive struggle, educators can create an atmosphere where students feel empowered to embrace difficult tasks, ultimately leading to deeper learning and personal growth. Mr. Kleve's insights serve as a vital guide for educators seeking to enrich their teaching practices while fostering a profound love for learning in their students.
Takeaways:
- Engagement serves as the vital bridge between rigor and student excitement in learning.
- Incorporating real-world connections enhances student engagement and makes learning more relevant.
- Choice-driven learning empowers students, increasing their investment in rigorous tasks.
- Celebrating productive struggle fosters resilience and a growth mindset among students.
- Utilizing games and projects can make rigorous content enjoyable and dynamic for students.
- Rigor and joy in education are not opposing forces, but rather complementary elements of effective teaching.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Be a Funky Teacher
Transcript
Yeah, he's Mr. Funky he's Mr. Funky Teacher.
Speaker A:Mr. Funky Teacher inspires greatness, makes you feel good like your favorite playlist Keeping that fresh and funky.
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Speaker A:He's Mr. Funky Teacher yeah, he's Mr. Funky Teacher yeahS, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:This is Mr. Funky Teacher with Be a Funky Teacher dot com.
Speaker B:I'm coming to you with another Be a Funky Teacher podcast.
Speaker B:Welcome, everyone.
Speaker B:Today's episode is titled how do you provide rigor while still keeping it fun and exciting for students?
Speaker B:That's what we're focusing on now.
Speaker B:This question actually comes directly from an educator.
Speaker B:During my session at the National Teacher Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida, hosted by the Nebraska Network of Students State Teachers of the Year, this question came in through the through the presentation app, and I wanted to address it.
Speaker B:I wanted to spend some time with it because it is a valuable question and I think a lot of people would want to hear how I respond to it.
Speaker B:So before we get into it, I do have three things that I'm thankful for.
Speaker B:The very first thing I am thankful for is my cousin Mike.
Speaker B:He is always a great listener, even when he is thousands of miles away.
Speaker B:I can always connect with him and talk with him, and I appreciate that.
Speaker B:Second thing I'm thankful for is professional development days.
Speaker B:Now, there's some people who are saying I don't like professional development days.
Speaker B:I like them, actually.
Speaker B:I think they're great.
Speaker B:It's an opportunity and time to grow, to reflect and to recharge.
Speaker B:As an educator, I do see value in them.
Speaker B:There are certainly some days that are more beneficial than others.
Speaker B:If they're done right by a school district, I think they can be very meaningful and they can be very impactful.
Speaker B:Third thing, fun T shirts.
Speaker B:I love a fun T shirt.
Speaker B:Shirts that have different sayings on them or different pictures on them that can be reflective of personalities and joy.
Speaker B:I just love them.
Speaker B:Whether in my personal life, in my professional life, some fun shirts that have fun sayings and quotes, pictures.
Speaker B:There's just something about them that I really like.
Speaker B:All right, let's get into it, everyone.
Speaker B:So let's go Back once again.
Speaker B:The the topic that we are addressing is how do you provide rigor while keeping it fun and exciting for students?
Speaker B:The big thing is engagement is the bridge here.
Speaker B:Students buy into rigor when they're engaged.
Speaker B:We have to, we have to get them to ask why does it matter?
Speaker B:And make the purpose clear to students.
Speaker B:We have to get students to see that why it matters type of mentality.
Speaker B:One of the things that I think it's really important for teachers to do is to get them tied into is through real world connections.
Speaker B:If you're teaching content and and bringing layering into your lessons real world connections, you're going to have a much more higher likeliness that students will engage.
Speaker B:If they can see the real world connection, if they can see it relevant where it's just not, if it's so disconnected the learning to actual real world, then students are going to check out more likely and that's not what we want students to do.
Speaker B:So making it, truly making it have real world connections, learning that's taking place, teaching that's taking place in the classroom, get that world real world connection going, giving that extra little bit to connect it to the real world is going to be worth our weight in gold right there.
Speaker B:As, as we continue talking about engagement is the bridge.
Speaker B:I also got to do some cultural relevance where it relates to, to their life in some way.
Speaker B:I think about where I'm teaching on, on a reservation.
Speaker B:I try to connect a lot of learning to students and their native culture, trying to make it culturally relevant to them.
Speaker B:Now you can actually get in the cultural relevance of society so you can go more.
Speaker B:I can go beyond just our local community where I teach.
Speaker B:I go whether, you know, the state community, a national community cult, the culture of youth.
Speaker B:I mean there's a lot of different ways that you can look at cultural relevance and I consider all of those really as I'm trying to make lessons and content meaningful to them.
Speaker B:Bridge that that engagement and then choice driven learning.
Speaker B:If we want to take things to the next level with that and take high level engagement and bridge it with, with the rigor, we have to incorporate some choice driven learning into it opportunities for that.
Speaker B:I one of the things that I love doing is through inquiry based learning.
Speaker B:And if anytime that I can incorporate inquiry based learning now if it's more like mini inquiry based learning experiences that can be powerful, you can get into some longer projects where students still have choices incorporated into it, where it's not just the teacher giving all of the limits and guardrails for what A, a unit or lesson is and, and students have no say.
Speaker B:Well, you're going to get students to buy in more if they have choices in the matter.
Speaker B:I have found this over and over again.
Speaker B:Anytime you can incorporate choice into it, it's going to make, it's going to up the game in terms of having, making it more relevant and fun for students while also keeping the rigor high.
Speaker B:Teachers gotta incorporate that into it.
Speaker B:Another thing you gotta think about too is if you're given choices, you gotta be okay with whatever choices students make.
Speaker B:Out of the choices that you give students, there's been some teachers who will give certain choices and they're not happy with the choices that students give.
Speaker B:Well, maybe give choices that you're okay with students choosing.
Speaker B:Like there's three or four or five choices or even more than that, you got to be okay with all of those choices.
Speaker B:So that's just something to think about too where giving students choices but only really having one actual correct choice.
Speaker B:That's not, that's not, that's not actually giving students choices.
Speaker B:That's manipulating students.
Speaker B:So I want to encourage you to like, eh, let's avoid doing that type of style.
Speaker B:So that engagement is the bridge where you're getting students to tie into and having the classroom fun while buying into, well, keeping the classroom at a high level of rigorous.
Speaker B:That's how you do it.
Speaker B:Is that engagement and bridging it through real world connections, cultural relevance and choice driven learning.
Speaker B:Ultimately, engagement transforms rigor into curiosity.
Speaker B:I'll slide that down or I'll say that one more time.
Speaker B:Engagement transforms rigorous into curiosity.
Speaker B:When we get students getting curious about learning, we can get students excited about learning.
Speaker B:Next thing that I want to talk about how you, how you make this happen is through using games, projects and real world tasks.
Speaker B:You can do so much fun, exciting things in a classroom by bringing in things like scavenger hunts or Jeopardy style types of reviews or beat the teacher games.
Speaker B:I've done a lot of beat the teacher types of games in my classroom and yet still keeping the rigor high, keeping the learning high at a high level, bringing in projects into the classroom.
Speaker B:I've done different things where students create commercials or brochures or like museum types of walks.
Speaker B:One thing that I actually want to get into is having students do podcasting.
Speaker B:As I'm learning more about podcasting and the power of podcasting, I'd love to get students into doing some podcasting.
Speaker B:I'm super excited about the possibility of students podcasting and what that might look like I'm exploring that right now for some possible ideas even about maybe students showcasing their ho chunk culture and they're learning through possibly podcasts.
Speaker B:I'm not quite sure that what that's going to look like yet, but it's an idea that I'm playing around with right now.
Speaker B:But it doesn't.
Speaker B:But it can be other things too.
Speaker B:It can be.
Speaker B:Or maybe I just have students talk about social emotional types of learning that's taking place in the classroom and beyond and how they're connecting it that I think could be extremely powerful.
Speaker B:So we're always should be looking for ideas for how to make, make it exciting and make it relevant to the students those projects.
Speaker B:And then when we can have some like some real world tasks, I think about like simulation types of tasks.
Speaker B:I think of like debates or mock trials or even design challenges.
Speaker B:You could do so much fun with, with hands on real world tasks through our.
Speaker B:Have the like a simulation type of feel.
Speaker B:Y' all are going to get students so excited about.
Speaker B:About classroom.
Speaker B:You're going to bring so much fun into the classroom while keeping the rigor, the, the, the learning rigor high.
Speaker B:You're going to be, you're going to blow students minds, you're going to blow your own mind and powerful things are going to be happening in your classroom.
Speaker B:All of these strategies, they, they mix very much.
Speaker B:Deep level thinking, the depth of thinking goes.
Speaker B:So how do I want to say this?
Speaker B:You're taking the depth of thinking and you're delivering it with fun, right?
Speaker B:Like you're, you're pairing those two things up.
Speaker B:The, the, the.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're having a, you're delivering fun in the classroom while taking the depth of thinking at a, at a very high level.
Speaker B:And when you can, when you can match those two things, you're, you're going to see a lot of really cool things around learning taking place and the rigor is going to be so high y'.
Speaker B:All.
Speaker B:And then so, so the, the next thing here, how we do this is we gotta celebrate productive struggle.
Speaker B:We have to normal.
Speaker B:We have to normalize the, the idea that hard equals growth, that students can do hard things, that it's not just a cute little catchphrase that students can do hard things, that they actually can do hard things, that hard things.
Speaker B:Doing hard things equals growth.
Speaker B:We also have to model vulnerability, that hey, you know what?
Speaker B:This is tough but we'll figure it out together and we're in it together here and reward efforts and perseverance.
Speaker B:Perseverance, not just perfection.
Speaker B:We can't just set, set, have a mindset in our classroom that perfection equals growth because perfection does not equal growth.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:And what I see sometimes is if we have, if we're trying to model an idea of perfection in the classroom, it's more just surface level learning.
Speaker B:It's not, there's not a depth to it.
Speaker B:And that can be.
Speaker B:Become very problematic.
Speaker B:But if we want to take learning and have some depth to it, we gotta have it.
Speaker B:Have that thinking pushed out where hard equals growth and that and hard work, where students don't give up, where they get, they push up against something hard that they don't just say, hey, you're going to give up.
Speaker B:No, they can work through it.
Speaker B:They can have some grit, they can have resilience working through hard things.
Speaker B:And we can reward effort and perseverance.
Speaker B:Perseverance.
Speaker B:Not just that.
Speaker B:Perfection and giving the type of understanding that making mistakes is part of the classroom culture.
Speaker B:That, that, like, you know, you know, it'd be kind of interesting if, if like a teacher kept track of some of the struggle wins in the classroom over the course of a week.
Speaker B:Like, you do something like, how could this look like.
Speaker B:Imagine, like every Friday, you, you showcase the struggle wins of the week, right?
Speaker B:Like, like you, you, you, you list out the struggles, but not just the struggles, but the struggle wins.
Speaker B:Like, what were the.
Speaker B:Some of what were the top things that students did that were hard that week?
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B:That was.
Speaker B:Students worked through and they didn't give up on and they had growth on and they were struggle wins of the week.
Speaker B:How cool would that be?
Speaker B:Is teachers uplifted, raised up those struggles and showcased, hey, you were able to work through these challenges, these struggles.
Speaker B:You didn't give up.
Speaker B:And let's celebrate these wins in this way.
Speaker B:And wins being not giving up.
Speaker B:You know, challenges in a classroom can feel fun when students feel safe to try.
Speaker B:We want students to feel like they can try and they can fail and that they're not going to be made fun of or belittled by the teacher or made fun of by their classmates if they fail.
Speaker B:We want them to feel like, hey, they can do hard things.
Speaker B:They can.
Speaker B:They can put themselves out there, they can grow and it does.
Speaker B:Learning is messy.
Speaker B:Sometimes growth is messy.
Speaker B:Doing hard things is messy.
Speaker B:And giving that type of mindset is going to set students up for success in their life far greater than if we just do surface level mastery of concepts.
Speaker B:And there's not a lot of depth to what we're doing.
Speaker B:So some of the big key takeaways as I reflect here on this episode, is that rigorous work doesn't mean joyless work.
Speaker B:Fun and rigor are not enemies.
Speaker B:They're really partners.
Speaker B:Especially with us as educators, we can really partner those up together.
Speaker B:When students grow Students will grow when they're challenged and motivated.
Speaker B:Our job is to design spaces where challenges feel exciting, not defeating.
Speaker B:We don't want students to feel defeated.
Speaker B:We want them to feel challenged, uplifted, raised up, and motivated.
Speaker B:That, hey, they could do hard things, they could hang with it.
Speaker B:And if it's not perfect, that's all right.
Speaker B:Because part the journey is not.
Speaker B:Is not completing a task.
Speaker B:I'm the win is not completing a task.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The win is actually the journey of.
Speaker B:Of going through the process, and that's where you ultimately have real growth, y'.
Speaker B:All.
Speaker B:Man, I. I had fun kind of talking through this question, talking through this topic.
Speaker B:I. I hope I did.
Speaker B:I. I do believe I did the.
Speaker B:The question justice.
Speaker B:How do you provide rigor while keeping it fun and exciting for students?
Speaker B:I do think that I was able to address that in a way that was meaningful, purposeful, and will be relevant to all of the teachers, all of the funky teachers out there in the world.
Speaker B:So as I bring this episode to a close, I want you to remember to inspire greatness in young people.
Speaker B:And don't forget to be a funky teacher.
Speaker B:Bye now.
Speaker A:He's Mr. Funky Teacher, yeah he's Mr. Funky Teacher, oh, yeah, yeah.
