CHALLENGE (2)
OUR GOAL: To Help Boys Take up Challenges Related to Their Learning!
Last post we looked at why boys love challenge. The trick for teacher is to be able to take a boy’s love of challenge and extend it beyond games and hobbies so that it becomes an important part of how he experiences learning. Any boy can get the same testosterone driven high he receives he meets a video-game or sports challenge when doing school work. It’s just that many boys don’t see their classroom as a place of “worthy” challenges so they don’t approach it in that fashion. But if we can get them to do that, it makes school much more easier for boys—not to mention for teachers and parents!
SETTING A DAILY IN-CLASS CHALLENGE (Formal)
Last post I suggested an informal process to do that daily. A more formalized way of doing that is by using a…
Challenge Sheet.
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Basically you do the same thing you do with an informal challenge:
- Choose some work that students will be doing today (i.e. work from a math text book, research on a project, etc—any learning task that some specific time is set aside for will do.
- Ask them to come up with a little challenge for themselves related to the work It should be something they can accomplish within the given timeframe and something the THEY choose. Simple is best!
- Once they know what to do, give them the Challenge Sheet and ask them to record it
- Tell them their sheets can be signed and posted once they meet their challenge.
TRY IT AND LEAVE A COMMENT…
Did you find some of your students (particularly boys) more focused during the work period?
Were they willing to share their challenge after? How did they do?
