From disengagement to engagement: How to inspire teenagers during online learning.
DISENGAGEMENT:
✨Have the students sit and listen a full day in front of their computers = passive, tired passengers instead of active, self-driven learners.
✨Speak with a monotonous voice, show no face-expressions.
✨Don’t laugh and above all, don’t tell any kind of jokes. Don’t activate endorphins.
✨Give tasks that have no relevance whatsoever in the young person’s life.
ENGAGEMENT:
✨Use storytelling as a tool. Inspire them with captivating stories.
✨CONNECT each time with each student -> oxytocin, serotonin
✨LAUGH
✨Think hooks, trailers, and the GAMIFICATION of learning. Make small, bite-sized modules that all start and end with something spectacular = dopamine. Think of how youth motivates themselves hours on end in front of games on their screen. Use the concept to motivate learning!
✨Even better; collaborate with teacher colleagues and assign young people exciting, real-life, authentic challenges/problems that they have to solve. Set up a HUB where they can check-in. Have them practice project management. Dopamine drives inquiry, curiosity, and motivation.
