by Robert Lamber

Created on: December 04, 2008

In real estate the 3 most significant words bantered about for the value of properties is location, location, location!' In education the most valuable word should be involvement, involvement, involvement. No word explains better the method needed to open up the floodgates to learning. Subject matter in and of itself can be a daunting task for educators. Having 20 + students in a classroom and making subject matter palatable to each of their individual personalities is paramount to balancing 20 pieces of spinning China on 20 separate sticks (Sounds like a vaudeville act doesn't it?). Unless you keep spinning each plate they will lose momentum, slow down and crash. Student's are like those plates. So how does a teacher take subject matter and keep it spinning in the eyes of their students? By creativity and student participation. Hands on learning, involvement, enthusiasm, and getting the student to take an active role in their education builds self-motivation, self esteem, and a far better method than regurgitating information from behind a desk.

First and foremost, every teaching tool starts with enthusiasm. From there you find ways to have your enthusiasm rub off on your students and that takes creativity. If you love to teach or if you love the subject matter you teach, it has to show in your voice, your body language, your smile, and how you present the subject to your students. You must no your audience! Will they respond to reading Shakespeare by simply discussing it, or would they respond if you acted out the scenes or read aloud with emotion! That's a simple form of creativity. The lessons we learn early in our educational process are the foundation of all education even before we start formal schooling. As toddlers we crawl and touch, taste, smell, see and we hear the world around us. We learn because there are stimuli all around that our sense take in and make sense' of. Our natural instinct to learn comes from using as many of our senses as we can at every given opportunity. Why should we not continue that process? Get your students out of their chairs and out from behind their desks. Make them a part of the lessons. Use music, the Internet, colored pencils, magic tricks, research papers, silly poems, creative writing, etc., etc., etc. Any subject matter can incorporate more than just sight and hearing to learn. Think outside the box' for creative ways to have your enthusiasm stimulate your students so they want to be part of what you are teaching. Create self-motivation! The most popular museums today are the ones that allow for hands on' learning. So what does that tell you? Here's what I did.

From my own observations of children at play and from extensive research into how to get children to pay more attention in class', I have used a hands on' methodology that works just like the ribbon around the finger' memory stimulus. It's a concentration tool called Fingerthinkers that gets the student involved by creating a simple triggering mechanism that stimulates self-motivation to increase focusing and memory. It is amazingly simple, fun and easy for children to use. Not all students will respond, but they all are adding more of their senses when they try and that has to be a benefit! There are tons of creative teaching tools to capitalizing on your enthusiasm. Use them to get your students to feel, see, smell, and taste it, as you do. It will make learning sense' sational.

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