Hands-On Doesn't Apply to My Subject Area

If you've had great success with hands-on learning activities in your subject area, we'd love to hear about them. I'm sure you'd agree that sharing ideas really helps us as educators. However, I know it also can become discouraging when you feel cramped with preset standards and so many tests to prepare students towards.

With new and newer technology, we do not have to stay with methods by which we were taught. Therefore, try and think beyond the ways in which you were taught your subject area and, while still headed towards the standards to be met, think about ways in which you may have preferred to have the content presented to you. Think about:

• Are there ways in which students can reach the same outcome but develop more skills along the way;
• What is actually preset and what is, in fact, negotiable in my subject area;
• Even if many facts MUST be memorized, how can my students be launched into their own learning process through a hands-on learning project?

Do you remember learning something in your own way?  Did it make more sense for you?


TIP: Think beyond the preset confines of your subject area and more about the widely scoped relevance of your subject area

Coming up next, "Hands-on Only Works for Some Students." Stay tuned...