Teaching students is often challenging when students are in transition and settling into young adulthood. The dynamics between the educator and the students are traditionally authoritarian in nature in our part of the world. Hence the core areas educators struggle with are on how to shift into the role of a mentor and improve relevance in class.
Students seek to feel in charge of their decisions and are at the forefront when making tough life choices. The educators must shift focus to making lessons relevant to their real-life and current challenges.
Here are 4 ways and educator can improve relevance in class:
Include Hand on Experience in Class
As students move onto senior classes, the opportunities to interact with objects, experiments and articles reduces. It is essential to enrich their daily lessons and engage them by including things that give room to experiment and learn.
Hence include activities and design lectures which specifically require a hands-on experience to increase relevance in class.
Involve Project-Based Learning
Projects based assignments encourage the idea of research and build camaraderie amongst students. Additionally, it adds to experiential learning and makes the students independent too.
Offer your students a chance to work on projects which take root from a real-life situation. Assort students into teams and direct them to resources that assist them on this journey.
Use Real-World Problems or Simulations
The use of simulations and real-life scenarios adds depth to the lessons offering students a chance to think out of the box. Such activities increase not only improve relevancy of lessons but expands minds of students as well.
Hence base your lessons on real-life problems and set up mock situations of real-life events. Allow students to take the role of leaders in these scenarios and work their way back towards a solution.
Invite Guest Speakers
Inviting guest speakers is a great way to get the students excited about their class. The thrill of meeting someone making an impact in the real world is likely to increase relevance in class. The students also benefit from tips and new perspective on lessons gained from such interactive sessions too.