Making the History classroom fun and engaging

A few little things you can add to your practise to further engage and entertain your History students

Sam Cavnoudias

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• First, take a good hard look

at yourself

– For your class to be fun and

engaging, you have to be fun

and engaging

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Be confident and inspiring

– Own the room you step into,

every time, every day.

– No student will engage with

you if you can’t engage with

them

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Know your material

– Fake it til you make it.

– Once you’ve made it, don’t lose it!

It’s too easy to stop reading up and

to stop being the expert.

– In order to engage students with

work, you need to know more than

them. It needs to be obvious that

you are the master of your

classroom, and you can’t do that if

you don’t know your material!

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Be passionate about your subject

– We’ve all had to teach material we

don’t love and the students can tell. But

if you like what you do, show it! I would

rather be that super-dagy guy who loves

his subject than the ‘grey blur’ over in

the corner who obviously hates what he

teaches, whose class nobody wants to

be in.

– If all else fails, down a bunch of sugar 5

min before class starts...

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Vary your program – break the mould

– When was the last time you really did

something different with your class?

– Have you been working through a booklet or off

a PowerPoint for the last 2 weeks straight?

– Don’t go more than 4 days without doing

something different. Watch a documentary, put

on a mock trial, do a jigsaw task, make the

students assemble a team to plan to take down

the principal’s oppressive regime.

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Wheel and deal

– There is no shame in making

a deal with your class to

keep them engaged in ‘less

enthralling’ material. Make

a classroom deals or an

individual contracts for

specific students.

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Competition always wins

– For some reason boys

generally hate doing work,

both at school and at home,

but they will furiously attend

to very similar work-related

tasks if there is a competitive

element to it.

Making the History classroom fun and engaging

• Compassion is key

– For girls, generally, compassion

is the key to historical

engagement.

– In order to engage these

students in history, teacher

practise must be directed

towards making them feel

something for the material

covered in class.