An experienced teacher once said “No matter how patiently I explain things to my students and no matter how often I repeat the explanations, I cannot learn for them.” Students have to want to learn. It is the teacher's job to engage them in the lesson. Engaging a student is critical because it captures their attention. If a teacher doesn't have their attention to begin with then they won't learn no matter how many lectures are given. This happens to many teachers. It's not always easy to come up with a fun and creative lesson but it is a key component in a lesson.
Another thing that happens quite frequently is when students memorize facts rather than learning them. This leads to papers, quizzes, projects, and tests all completed without the student knowing anything. Students sometimes just write what the teacher has said or showed them. This doesn't mean that they understood the concept. An engaging hook can prevent this. I know that students do this from experience. I am personally not very good at math and science yet I can pass a test with flying colors. Not because I know the material, but because I have memorized the formulas and the facts. If you were to ask me something about chemistry (which I took a class in three years ago) I would have no idea what you were talking about. Yet I passed the class with a B+. Because I have a personal experience with this, I will make myself consciously aware about engaging my students when I am a teacher.
Mr. Wilson in the story "Icicles" written in Janice Koch's book "Science Stories," is one of the teachers who I aspire to be like. He took the time during his class's experiment to let the students explore their mistakes. This is a very successful method because everyone can learn from mistakes. And yes, the students did learn. They didn't just memorize the correct formulas or answers and Mr. Wilson did not simply give them the correct answers. Exploring can help students learn. If Mr. Wilson had not let the students explore they would have either not understood the experiment or they would have remembered the factual aspects of the experiment and put them on paper. It would have meant that the students didn't learn.
Like Mr. Wilson's icicles, there are plenty of aspects in nature a teacher can share with their students. A simple rock has many scientific elements. They go through many stages and can change appearances. Other things like a plant for photosynthesis can be brought it. Students love when a real example is shown. It helps them connect a fact to every day life. Simply lecturing about photosynthesis could be boring but if a plant was shown and there was a live example, the students might pay attention more. I'm sure in the future I will be bringing in real examples.
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