Lack of student engagement can usually be attributed to a disinterest of student in the subject matter. It most likely, from the perspective of the student, is irrelevant to his/her life and is thus uninteresting. Students love to learn, but they love to learn things that they find interesting. As we can see in Caine's Arcade, his passion, drive, and dedication are placed in his arcade. He created a business from something he loved to do: breaking things down, figuring out how they work, and then rebuilding them. By continuing to expand, modify, and improve his arcade, he is learning key business strategies.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, project based learning can lead to great projects such as Caine's Arcade. It is up to the teacher to encourage students to take what they find interesting and to create something meaningful. Caine did not have a teacher, his project was intrinsically motivated. That does not mean that teachers cannot learn from it. By finding ways to make uninteresting topics appealing, teachers can inspire students to further explore that topic. All that must be given is enough freedom for students to create something that is meaningful to him/her. There of course have to be some basic guidelines, but it something that is possible.
One project that I remember my master teacher doing with one of his classes was one where students had to choose a short Spanish story in a group. The students then had to really focus on all aspects of the story, from the life of the author, to relevant social and political events surrounding the story. Then students had to create a binder plus a presentation revolving around what could have been a story as short as three pages. The end product was always different and reflected the personalities of the students involved in their creation, but it was something that they were proud of. Moving forward, I think that we as educators must provide opportunities for students to not only be proud of their work, but to want to create their own unique pieces of work to contribute to society.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, project based learning can lead to great projects such as Caine's Arcade. It is up to the teacher to encourage students to take what they find interesting and to create something meaningful. Caine did not have a teacher, his project was intrinsically motivated. That does not mean that teachers cannot learn from it. By finding ways to make uninteresting topics appealing, teachers can inspire students to further explore that topic. All that must be given is enough freedom for students to create something that is meaningful to him/her. There of course have to be some basic guidelines, but it something that is possible.
One project that I remember my master teacher doing with one of his classes was one where students had to choose a short Spanish story in a group. The students then had to really focus on all aspects of the story, from the life of the author, to relevant social and political events surrounding the story. Then students had to create a binder plus a presentation revolving around what could have been a story as short as three pages. The end product was always different and reflected the personalities of the students involved in their creation, but it was something that they were proud of. Moving forward, I think that we as educators must provide opportunities for students to not only be proud of their work, but to want to create their own unique pieces of work to contribute to society.