how to make assignments more interesting

How to Make Homework Fun

Post author By admin
September 6, 2023

Discover engaging strategies for how to make homework fun. Explore personalized study spaces, gamification, collaboration, and more to make learning enjoyable.

Hey there, homework warriors! Let’s face it, homework often gets a bad rap for being a total buzzkill. The mere thought of it can make us want to escape to a world of video games, socializing, or anything but those looming assignments. But guess what? It doesn’t have to be that way!

In this article, we’re about to embark on a journey to uncover the secret sauce of making homework downright fun. That’s right, we’re flipping the script and turning the dreaded “H-word” into an exciting adventure.

So, if you’re ready to banish the boredom and inject some pizzazz into your study sessions, keep reading. We’ve got 15 game-changing tips coming your way to transform homework from a chore into a choice activity!

Table of Contents

How to Make Homework Fun?

Have a close look at how to make homework fun:-

Design a Homework Haven

Transforming a corner of your room into a cozy study nook is all about creating an inviting space that inspires productivity. Consider adding a:

Comfy Chair

Choose a chair with good lumbar support and a cushioned seat for long study sessions.

Soft Cushions

Scatter a few soft cushions on your chair or on the floor to make the nook extra inviting.

Motivational Posters

Hang up posters with motivational quotes or images that resonate with your goals. For instance, a poster featuring a quote like “You’ve Got This!” can provide daily encouragement.

Set a Homework Schedule

Creating a daily study schedule tailored to your rhythm can significantly boost your productivity. Here’s how to go about it:

Identify Your Peak Hours

Pay attention to when you feel most alert and focused during the day. Are you a morning person, or does your energy peak in the evening?

Designate Prime Study Time

Once you’ve identified your prime hours, set aside that time for your most challenging subjects or tasks. For example, if you’re a night owl, designate 8 PM to 10 PM as your prime study time.

Set Goals and Rewards

Setting goals and rewards can turn studying into a thrilling game. Here’s how to make it work:

Task-Based Rewards

Break your study session into smaller tasks. For instance, if you have a 2-hour study session, set a timer for every 30 minutes. When you complete a task within the allotted time, reward yourself with a mini-break or a quick treat.

Dance Breaks

After accomplishing a particularly tough assignment or study session, treat yourself to a five-minute dance break to your favorite upbeat song.

Group Study Sessions

Studying with friends can make homework a social and interactive experience. Here’s how to organize a productive group study session:

Choose Study Buddies

Invite friends who are equally committed to studying. Avoid distractions and focus on collaborative learning.

During breaks, enjoy some snacks and refreshments together. It’s an excellent opportunity to bond and recharge.

Gamify Your Homework

Turning your assignments into a game can make them engaging and competitive. Here’s an example:

Math Challenges

For every correct math problem you solve, award yourself points. Set a target, like 100 points. Once you reach that goal, treat yourself to a favorite dessert or activity.

Use Technology Wisely

Leveraging educational apps and websites can make learning enjoyable. Consider:

Learning Languages

Apps like Duolingo and Babbel gamify language learning with interactive lessons and quizzes.

Science Simulations

Websites like PhET Interactive Simulations offer fun science experiments and simulations.

Listen to Music

Creating a playlist for different study moods can set the tone for productive work:

Upbeat Playlist

Compile lively tunes for subjects like math or science to keep your energy high.

Chillout Playlist

Use calming melodies for reading assignments or essay writing to stay focused.

Change Your Study Materials

Enhance your study materials with colors and visual appeal:

Colorful Notes

When taking notes, use different colored pens for headings, key points, and examples. Highlight important concepts with bright markers.

Create a Homework Playlist

Crafting a motivational playlist can boost your enthusiasm for study sessions:

Personalized Mix

Include songs that motivate you. Whether it’s energetic rock, inspiring pop, or calming instrumental, curate a playlist that resonates with you.

Relate Homework to Real Life

Connecting assignments to real-life situations can make them more meaningful. For example:

Applying Math

If you’re learning about percentages, practice by calculating discounts while shopping online. It’s a practical application of what you’re studying.

Ask for Help When Needed

Don’t hesitate to seek assistance when you’re stuck:

Online Tutors

Utilize online tutoring services like Khan Academy or Chegg when you need clarification on complex topics.

Celebrate Your Achievements

Reward yourself for completing challenging assignments:

Mini Rewards

After finishing a tough essay or solving a set of difficult problems, treat yourself to a favorite snack or a short episode of your favorite TV show.

Use Colorful Visual Aids

Visual aids can make complex topics easier to understand:

Timeline for History

Create a timeline of historical events using colorful markers and sticky notes. It helps you visualize the sequence of historical occurrences.

Stay Organized

Organization is key for effective studying:

Digital Planner

Use digital tools like Google Calendar or Todoist to keep track of assignments and due dates. Set reminders to stay on top of your tasks.

By incorporating these detailed strategies and examples, you can transform your homework routine into an enjoyable and productive experience tailored to your preferences and learning style.

These examples demonstrate practical ways to infuse fun and engagement into your homework routine, making the learning process more enjoyable and productive.

What are ways to make homework fun?

Create a Comfortable Space: Design a cozy study spot with your favorite things.
Set a Schedule: Stick to a regular study routine that suits you.
Break Tasks Down: Divide homework into smaller, manageable chunks.
Reward Yourself: Treat yourself after completing tasks or goals.
Study with Friends: Make it social by studying with buddies.
Use Apps: Try fun and educational apps for learning.
Listen to Music: Create a motivating study playlist.
Make It Visual: Use colors and visuals to make notes pop.
Connect to Real Life: Relate homework to everyday situations.
Stay Organized: Use planners to stay on top of assignments.

These simple tips can make homework less daunting and more enjoyable.

How do I make my homework less boring?

Want to jazz up your homework and banish the boredom? Here’s the lowdown:

Create Your Happy Place

Start by transforming your study spot into a haven of fun. Add some quirky decorations, fairy lights, or even a cozy blanket fort – whatever makes you smile.

Slice and Dice

Homework can feel like a mountain, right? Well, cut it into bite-sized chunks. Tackling one piece at a time feels way less overwhelming.

Goals with a Side of Rewards

Set yourself mini-goals and sprinkle rewards on top. Finish that math problem? Treat yourself to a victory dance or a mini snack party.

Study Squad

Invite a friend for a study date. You can help each other out and share some giggles during breaks.

Homework Gamified

Turn your homework into a game. Assign points or rewards for completing tasks. Hit a certain score, and it’s time to indulge in your favorite treat.

Dive into educational apps or websites. Learning becomes a blast when it’s interactive and entertaining.

Musical Motivation

Craft a playlist with your favorite tunes. Pop on some energetic beats for those math equations, or soothing melodies for reading assignments.

Colorful Creativity

Don’t just take notes, make them a work of art with colorful pens and highlighters. Visuals can make studying way more interesting.

Real-World Homework

Connect your assignments to real life. If you’re tackling percentages, apply them to calculate discounts while shopping online.

Stay Organized and Sane

Keep your homework organized using planners or digital tools. No more last-minute panics about forgotten deadlines.

With these tricks up your sleeve, homework will become a breeze, and you might even have some fun along the way!

How do I make myself enjoy homework?

Making yourself enjoy homework can be a challenge, but it’s possible with a few mindset shifts and strategies:

Find Purpose

Understand why you’re doing the homework. Connect it to your long-term goals and how it benefits you. Knowing the “why” can make it more meaningful.

Positive Mindset

Approach homework with a positive attitude. Focus on the sense of accomplishment you’ll feel when you complete it.

Set Realistic Goals

Break your homework into smaller tasks and set achievable goals. Completing each part can give you a sense of progress and satisfaction.

Create a Comfortable Space

Design a cozy and organized study area that you enjoy spending time in. A pleasant environment can make a big difference.

Mix up your subjects and tasks to avoid monotony. Switching between different assignments can keep things interesting.

Set a Schedule

Establish a study routine that suits your natural rhythm. Find the time of day when you’re most alert and use it for more challenging tasks.

Reward Yourself

Treat yourself after completing homework or reaching specific milestones. It can be as simple as a small snack, a short break, or doing something you love.

Stay Engaged

Try to actively engage with the material. Ask questions, discuss concepts with classmates, or relate it to real-life situations.

Study Groups

Consider joining or creating study groups with friends. Discussing topics and helping each other can make the process more enjoyable.

Celebrate Progress

Celebrate your achievements, even small ones. Recognize your efforts and improvements.

Mindfulness Techniques

Practice mindfulness or relaxation techniques before starting homework to reduce stress and increase focus.

If you’re struggling with a particular subject, don’t hesitate to ask for help from teachers, classmates, or online resources.

Visual Aids

Use visual aids like diagrams, charts, or flashcards to make studying more engaging and easier to grasp.

Incorporate Interests

If possible, relate homework topics to your interests or hobbies. It can make the material more relatable and enjoyable.

Use planners or digital tools to keep track of assignments, due dates, and progress. Being organized can reduce stress.

Remember that enjoying homework might not happen overnight, but by implementing these strategies and maintaining a positive mindset, you can make the process more enjoyable and rewarding.

How can I make my high school homework fun?

Making high school homework fun requires creativity and a positive attitude. Here are some tips to make your high school homework more enjoyable:

Personalize Your Space

Create a study environment that reflects your personality and interests. Decorate your study area with posters, photos, or artwork that inspires you.

Set a Homework Routine

Establish a consistent homework routine that aligns with your energy levels. Determine the best time of day for you to focus and stick to it.

Break Tasks into Smaller Steps

Divide your assignments into smaller, manageable tasks. Completing each step feels like an accomplishment and keeps you motivated.

Incorporate technology into your homework. Explore educational apps and websites that make learning interactive and engaging.

Study with Friends

Organize study groups with friends to tackle assignments together. You can explain concepts to each other and share different perspectives.

Gamify Your Learning

Turn your homework into a game. Set challenges, time limits, or point systems for completing tasks. Reward yourself when you meet your goals.

Create playlists for different subjects or moods. Upbeat music can boost your energy for math, while calming tunes can help you concentrate on reading assignments.

Experiment with different study materials. Use colorful pens, highlighters, or digital tools to make your notes visually appealing.

Real-Life Applications

Relate your homework to real-life situations whenever possible. For example, if you’re studying economics, analyze current events or business news .

Seek Support

Don’t hesitate to ask for help when needed. Reach out to teachers, classmates, or online resources for clarification or guidance.

Celebrate Achievements

Celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small. Reward yourself with a treat, a short break, or an activity you enjoy after completing homework.

Use planners, to-do lists, or digital tools to stay organized and track assignments and deadlines.

Challenge Yourself

Set personal challenges to make homework more engaging. Aim to finish assignments faster or with higher accuracy than before.

Whenever possible, relate homework topics to your interests or future career goals. It can make the material more relatable and engaging.

Stay Positive

Maintain a positive attitude toward your homework. Focus on the sense of accomplishment and knowledge gained through your efforts.

By incorporating these strategies into your high school homework routine, you can make the experience more enjoyable and productive while achieving academic success.

In conclusion, making homework fun is not just a distant dream; it’s a practical approach that can transform the way you tackle your assignments.

By personalizing your study space, setting goals and rewards, collaborating with friends, and gamifying your learning, you can turn the once-dreaded homework into an engaging adventure.

Incorporating technology, music, colorful materials, and real-life connections adds an extra layer of enjoyment. Remember to celebrate your achievements along the way and stay organized to reduce stress.

With a positive mindset and these strategies in your arsenal, you can embark on your homework journey with enthusiasm, making it not only bearable but genuinely enjoyable.

So, let’s turn the page and dive into the exciting world of learning, one fun homework assignment at a time!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can i really make homework fun.

Absolutely! With the right approach and mindset, homework can be an enjoyable part of your academic journey.

What if I can’t concentrate with music?

Not everyone finds music helpful. Experiment with different study environments to discover what suits you best.

How do I avoid procrastination?

Creating a schedule and setting achievable goals can help you stay on track and avoid procrastination.

What if I still find a particular subject boring?

Try to connect it to your interests or real-life situations to make it more engaging.

How can I make studying with friends productive?

Ensure that your study group remains focused on the task at hand and avoids distractions.

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20 Interactive Classroom Activities for College Students [Plus: Free List of 45+ Activities]

Planning to use interactive classroom activities intentionally can really transform the learning dynamic. Here are 20 activities to get you started.

Top Hat Staff

20 Interactive Classroom Activities for College Students [Plus: Free List of 45+ Activities]

How interactive are your classroom activities? Do you have less energy for class than you used to? Do you find student grades declining? And are the teaching methods you’ve always relied on not working as well as they once did? We spoke to two college instructors, Chris Merlo and Monika Semma. Their strategies for interactive classroom activities will energize your class and get the discussion moving again.

Why are interactive activities important in college?

6 community-building activities

5 communication activities for college students, 3 motivational activities for college students.

6 team-building activities for college students

Interactive classroom activities, in short

Why are interactive classroom activities important.

Merlo, a computer science teacher, says that interactive classroom activities are not new to students, and one main reason why teachers have trouble connecting is that they fail to adapt to their students’ perspectives.

“My six-year-old son doesn’t find iPads amazing; to him, they’ve always just existed. Similarly, to a lot of students today, experiences like team exercises and flipped classrooms, while foreign to many instructors are not new.

“If we care about reaching today’s students, who seem to have a different idea of student responsibilities than we had, perhaps we have to reach them on their terms.

“In my thirties, I could still find a lot of similarities with my twenty-something students. But now, in my forties? Not so much. What I’ve started to realize is that it isn’t just the little things, like whether they’ve seen Ghostbusters. (They haven’t.) It’s the big things, like how they learn.”

Semma, a humanities TA, found that the chalk-and-talk approach failed on her first day in front of a class. “It was a lot like parallel parking in front of 20 people,” she said. “I looked more like a classmate. I dropped the eraser on my face whilst trying to write my name on the board. One of my students called me ‘mom.’”

“I chalked it up to first day jitters, but that same quietness crept its way back into my classroom for the next tutorial, and the next tutorial and the next. While nearly silent in class, my students were rather vocal in the endless stream of emails that flooded my inbox. That way I knew they wanted to learn. I also knew that I had to find a way to make tutorials more engaging.”

From these experiences, Merlo and Semma now share some interactive classroom activities for students and for teachers that can turn a quiet classroom full of people unwilling to speak up to a hive of debate, making the student learning experience more collaborative for everyone.

Energize your college classroom and get discussions flowing. Download The Best Classroom Activities for College Courses to engage and motivate students.

1. Open-ended questions

Chris Merlo: Open-ended questions don’t take any planning. All they take is a class with at least one student who isn’t too shy. I remember a class a few semesters ago that started with nine students. Due to a couple of medical conditions and a job opportunity, three of the students had to drop the semester. The problem was that these three students were the ones I counted on to ask questions and keep the class lively! Once I was left with six introverted people, conversations during class seemed to stop.

By luck, I stumbled on something that got the students talking again. I said, “What has been the most difficult thing about [the project that was due soon]?” This opened the floodgates—students love to complain, especially about us and our demands. This one simple question led to twenty minutes of discussion involving all six students. I wasn’t even sure what a couple of these students’ voices sounded like, but once I gave them an open-ended opportunity to complain about an assignment, they were off to the races. A truly successful classroom activity.

2. What’s wrong with this example?

Chris Merlo: Students also love to find a professor’s mistakes—like me, I’m sure you’ve found this out the hard way. When I teach computer science, I will make up a program that, for instance, performs the wrong arithmetic, and have students find the bug. In a particularly quiet or disengaged class, you can incentivize students with five points on the next exam, or something similar.

If you teach history, you might use flawed examples that change a key person’s name, such as “King Henry VIII (instead of King John) signed the Magna Carta in 1215,” or match a person to an incorrect event: “Gavrilo Princip is considered to have fired the first shot in the Spanish Civil War (instead of World War I).” Beam these examples on the whiteboard, and let the students’ competitiveness drive them to get the right answer before their classmates.

3. Let students critique each other

Chris Merlo: This can go badly if you don’t set some ground rules for civility, but done well, classroom activities like this really help open up collaborative learning. One of my colleagues devised a great exercise: First, give students about half of their class time to write instructions that an imaginary robot can understand to draw a recognizable picture, like a corporate logo, without telling students what will happen later. Then assign each student’s instructions to a randomly chosen classmate, and have the classmate pretend to be the robot, attempting to follow the instructions and draw the same logo.

After a few minutes, introduce a specific student who can share their results with the class, then ask their partner to share the initial instructions. This method gives students a chance to communicate with each other (“That’s not what I meant!”) and laugh and bond, while learning an important lesson.

This exercise teaches computer science students the difficulty and importance of writing clear instructions. I have seen this exercise not only teach pairs of such students meaningful lessons but encourage friendships that extended beyond my classroom.

Get students participating with these 45 classroom activities

4. Pass the “mic”

Monika Semma: As an instructor, it’s amazing how much information you can gather from a student-centered review session. Specifically, if you leave the review in the hands of your students, you can get an easy and thorough assessment of what is being absorbed, and what is being left by the wayside. The more you encourage participation, the more you’ll see where your class is struggling and the more comfortable students will become with course material. Here’s how to transform a standard review into one of your more popular classroom activities:

A week before the review, ask students to email you two to five key terms or theories that they feel they need to brush up on. Take all that data and compress it until you have a solid working list of what students want to review most.
In class, provide students with visual access to the list (I found writing all the terms on a chalkboard to be most effective). Instruct the class to have their notes out in front of them, with a pad of paper or blank Word document at their fingertips, and encourage them to take notes as the review is in progress.
A trinket of sorts (I highly recommend a plush ball), used as a “microphone,” helps to give students equal opportunity to direct the review without putting individuals on the spot too aggressively. The rules are simple: she or he who holds the “mic” can pick one term from the list and using their notes, can offer up what they already know about the term or concept, what they are unsure of, or what they need more elaboration on.
Actively listen to the speaker and give them some positive cues if they seem unsure; it’s okay to help them along the way, but important to step back and let this review remain student-centered. Once the speaker has said their piece, open the floor to the rest of the class for questions or additional comments. If you find that the discussion has taken a departure from the right direction, re-center the class and provide further elaboration if need be.
Erase each term discussed from the list as you go, and have the speaker pass (or throw) on the “mic” to a fellow classmate, and keep tossing the ball around after each concept/term is discussed.

Students will have a tendency to pick the terms that they are most comfortable speaking about and those left consistently untouched will give you a clear assessment of the subjects in which your class is struggling, and where comprehension is lacking. Once your class has narrowed down the list to just a few terms, you can switch gears into a more classic review session. Bringing a bit of interaction and fun into a review can help loosen things up during exam time, when students and teachers alike are really starting to feel the pressure.

5. Use YouTube for classroom activities

Monika Semma: Do you remember the pure and utter joy you felt upon seeing your professor wheel in the giant VHS machine into class? Technology has certainly changed—but the awesome powers of visual media have not. Making your students smile can be a difficult task, but by channeling your inner Bill Nye the Science Guy you can make university learning fun again.

A large part of meaningful learning is finding interactive classroom activities that are relevant to daily life—and I can think of no technology more relevant to current students than YouTube.

A crafty YouTube search can yield a video relevant to almost anything in your curriculum and paired with an essay or academic journal, a slightly silly video can go a long way in helping your students contextualize what they are learning.

Even if your comedic attempts plunge into failure, at the very least, a short clip will get the class discussion ball rolling. Watch the video as a class and then break up into smaller groups to discuss it. Get your students thinking about how the clip they are shown pairs with the primary sources they’ve already read.

6. Close reading

Monika Semma: In the humanities, we all know the benefits of close reading activities—they get classroom discussion rolling and students engaging with the material and open up the floor for social and combination learners to shine. “Close reading” is a learning technique in which students are asked to conduct a detailed analysis or interpretation of a small piece of text. It is particularly effective in getting students to move away from the general and engage more with specific details or ideas.

If you’re introducing new and complex material to your class, or if you feel as though your students are struggling with an equation, theory, or concept; giving them the opportunity to break it down into smaller and more concrete parts for further evaluation will help to enhance their understanding of the material as a whole.

And while this technique is often employed in the humanities, classroom activities like this can be easily transferred to any discipline. A physics student will benefit from having an opportunity to break down a complicated equation in the same way that a biology student can better understand a cell by looking at it through a microscope.

In any case, evaluating what kinds of textbooks, lesson plans and pedagogy we are asking our students to connect with is always a good idea.

Brainwriting

Group size: 10 students (minimum)

Course type: Online (synchronous), in-person

This activity helps build rapport and respect in your classroom. After you tackle a complex lecture topic, give students time to individually reflect on their learnings. This can be accomplished through guided prompts or left as an open-ended exercise. Once students have gathered their thoughts, encourage them to share their views either through an online discussion thread or a conversation with peers during class time.

Concept mapping

Collaborative concept mapping is the process of visually organizing concepts and ideas and understanding how they relate to each other. This exercise is a great way for students to look outside of their individual experiences and perspectives. Groups can use this tactic to review previous work or to help them map ideas for projects and assignments. For in-person classes, you can ask students to cover classroom walls with sticky notes and chart paper. For online classes, there are many online tools that make it simple to map out connections between ideas, like Google Docs or the digital whiteboard feature in Zoom.

Group size: Groups of 5–10 students

Propose a topic or issue to your class. Group students together (or in breakout rooms if you’re teaching remotely) according to the position they take on the specific issue. Ask the groups of students to come up with a few arguments or examples to support their position. Write each group’s statements on the virtual whiteboard and use these as a starting point for discussion. A natural next step is to debate the strengths and weaknesses of each argument, to help students improve their critical thinking and analysis skills.

Make learning active with these 45 interactive classroom activities

Compare and contrast

Group size: Groups of 5–10 students

Ask your students to focus on a specific chapter in your textbook. Then, place them in groups and ask them to make connections and identify differences between ideas that can be found in course readings and other articles and videos they may find. This way, they can compare their ideas in small groups and learn from one another’s perspectives. In online real-time classes, instructors can use Zoom breakout rooms to put students in small groups.

Assess/diagnose/act

This activity will improve students’ problem-solving skills and can help engage them in more dynamic discussions. Start by proposing a topic or controversial statement. Then follow these steps to get conversations going. In online classes, students can either raise their hands virtually or use an online discussion forum to engage with their peers.

Assessment: What is the issue or problem at hand?
Diagnosis: What is the root cause of this issue or problem?
Action: How can we solve the issue?

Moral dilemmas

Group size: Groups of 3–7 students

Provide students with a moral or ethical dilemma, using a hypothetical situation or a real-world situation. Then ask them to explore potential solutions as a group. This activity encourages students to think outside the box to develop creative solutions to the problem. In online learning environments, students can use discussion threads or Zoom breakout rooms.

Conversation stations

Group size: Groups of 4–6 students

Course type: In-person

This activity exposes students’ ideas in a controlled way, prompting discussions that flow naturally. To start, share a list of discussion questions pertaining to a course reading, video or case study. Put students into groups and give them five-to-ten minutes to discuss, then have two students rotate to another group. The students who have just joined a group have an opportunity to share findings from their last discussion, before answering the second question with their new group. After another five-to-ten minutes, the students who haven’t rotated yet will join a new group.

This or that

Course type: Online (synchronous or asynchronous), in-person

This activity allows students to see where their peers stand on a variety of different topics and issues. Instructors should distribute a list of provocative statements before class, allowing students to read ahead. Then, they can ask students to indicate whether they agree, disagree or are neutral on the topic in advance, using an online discussion thread or Google Doc. In class, use another discussion thread or live chat to have students of differing opinions share their views. After a few minutes, encourage one or two members in each group to defend their position amongst a new group of students. Ask students to repeat this process for several rounds to help familiarize themselves with a variety of standpoints.

6 team-building classroom activities for college students

Snowball discussions .

Group size: 2–4 students per group

Assign students a case study or worksheet to discuss with a partner, then have them share their thoughts with the larger group. Use breakout rooms in Zoom and randomly assign students in pairs with a discussion question. After a few minutes, combine rooms to form groups of four. After another five minutes, combine groups of four to become a larger group of eight—and so on until the whole class is back together again.

Make it personal

Group size: Groups of 2–8 students

After you’ve covered a topic or concept in your lecture, divide students into small discussion groups (or breakout rooms online). Ask the groups questions like “How did this impact your prior knowledge of the topic?” or “What was your initial reaction to this source/article/fact?” to encourage students to reflect on their personal connections to the course concepts they are learning.

Philosophical chairs

Group size: 20–25 students (maximum)

A statement that has two possible responses—agree or disagree—is read out loud. Depending on whether they agree or disagree with this statement, students move to one side of the room or the other. After everyone has chosen a side, ask one or two students on each side to take turns defending their positions. This allows students to visualize where their peers’ opinions come from, relative to their own.

Get more interactive classroom activities here

Affinity mapping

Group size: Groups of 3–8 students

Course type: Online (synchronous)

Place students in small groups (or virtual breakout rooms) and pose a broad question or problem to them that is likely to result in lots of different ideas, such as “What was the greatest innovation of the 21st century?” or “How would society be different if _____ never occurred?” Ask students to generate responses by writing ideas on pieces of paper (one idea per page) or in a discussion thread (if you’re teaching online). Once lots of ideas have been generated, have students begin grouping their ideas into similar categories, then label the categories and discuss why the ideas fit within them, how the categories relate to one another and so on. This allows students to engage in higher-level thinking by analyzing ideas and organizing them in relation to one another.

Socratic seminar

Group size: 20 students (minimum)

Ask students to prepare for a discussion by reviewing a course reading or group of texts and coming up with a few higher-order discussion questions about the text. In class, pose an introductory, open-ended question. From there, students continue the conversation, prompting one another to support their claims with evidence from previous course concepts or texts. There doesn’t need to be a particular order to how students speak, but they are encouraged to respectfully share the floor with their peers.

Concentric circles

Group size: 20 students (maximum)

Students form two circles: an inner circle and an outer circle. Each student on the inside is paired with a student on the outside; they face each other. Pose a question to the whole group and have pairs discuss their responses with each other. After three-to-five minutes, have students on the outside circle move one space to the right so they are standing in front of a new person. Pose a new question, and the process is repeated, exposing students to the different perspectives of their peers.

Making your classes more interactive should help your students want to come to class and take part in it. Giving them a more active role will give them a sense of ownership, and this can lead to students taking more pride in their work and responsibility for their grades.

Use these 45 classroom activities in your course to keep students engaged

A more interactive class can also make things easier for you—the more work students do in class, the less you have to do. Even two minutes of not talking can re-energize you for the rest of the class.

Plus, these six methods outlined above don’t require any large-scale changes to your class prep. Set up a couple of activities in advance here and there, to support what you’ve been doing, and plan which portion of your class will feature them.

The reality remains that sometimes, students do have to be taught subject matter that is anything but exciting. That doesn’t mean that we can’t make it more enjoyable to teach or learn. It may not be possible to incorporate classroom activities into every lecture, but finding some room for these approaches can go a long way in facilitating a positive learning environment.

And let’s not forget, sometimes even an educator needs a brief departure from the everyday-ordinary-sit-and-listen-to-me-lecture regimen.

The Ultimate Guide to Metacognition for Post-Secondary Courses

how to make assignments more interesting

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Articles / Homework

Smart Homework: 13 Ways to Make It Meaningful

by MiddleWeb · Published 08/04/2014 · Updated 11/17/2019

In the first installment of Rick Wormeli’s homework advice, he made the case for take-home assignments that matter for learning and engage student interest . In Part 2, Rick offers some guiding principles that can help teachers create homework challenges that motivate kids and spark deeper learning in and out of school.

These articles are adapted and updated from Rick’s seminal book about teaching in the middle grades, Day One & Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle Level Teachers . Rick continues to offer great advice about homework, differentiation, assessment and many other topics in workshops and presentations across North America. Check back in Part 1 for some additional homework resources.

I’ve been accumulating guiding principles for creating highly motivating homework assignments for many years — from my own teaching and from the distilled wisdom of others. Here are a baker’s dozen. Choose the ones most appropriate for students’ learning goals and your curriculum.

1. Give students a clear picture of the final product. This doesn’t mean everything is structured for them, or that there aren’t multiple pathways to the same high quality result. There’s room for student personalities to be expressed. Students clearly know what is expected, however. A clear picture sets purpose for doing the assignment. Priming the brain to focus on particular aspects of the learning experience helps the brain process the information for long-term retention. Setting purpose for homework assignments has an impact on learning and the assignment’s completion rate, as research by Marzano and others confirms.

2. Incorporate a cause into the assignment. Middle level students are motivated when they feel they are righting a wrong. They are very sensitive to justice and injustice. As a group, they are also very nurturing of those less fortunate than them. Find a community or personal cause for which students can fight fairly and incorporate your content and skills in that good fight— students will be all over the assignment.

4. Incorporate people whom students admire in their assignments. Students are motivated when asked to share what they know and feel about these folks. We are a society of heroes, and young adolescents are interested in talking about and becoming heroic figures.

5. Allow choices, as appropriate. Allow students to do the even-numbered or odd-numbered problems, or allow them to choose from three prompts, not just one. Let them choose the word that best describes the political or scientific process. Let them identify their own diet and its effects on young adolescent bodies. Let them choose to work with partners or individually. How about allowing them to choose from several multiple-intelligence based tasks? If they are working in ways that are comfortable, they are more likely to do the work. By making the choice, they have upped their ownership of the task.

6. Incorporate cultural products into the assignment. If students have to use magazines, television shows, foods, sports equipment, and other products they already use, they are likely to do the work. The brain loves to do tasks in contexts with which it is familiar.

7. Allow students to collaborate in determining how homework will be assessed. If they help design the criteria for success, such as when they create the rubric for an assignment, they “own” the assignment. It comes off as something done by them, not to them. They also internalize the expectations—another way for them to have clear targets.

With some assignments we can post well-done versions from previous years (or ones we’ve created for this purpose) and ask students to analyze the essential characteristics that make these assignments exemplary. Students who analyze such assignments will compare those works with their own and internalize the criteria for success, referencing the criteria while doing the assignment, not just when it’s finished.

9. Spruce up your prompts. Don’t ask students to repeatedly answer questions or summarize. Try some of these openers instead: Decide between, argue against, Why did ______ argue for, compare, contrast, plan, classify, retell ______ from the point of view of ______, Organize, build, interview, predict, categorize, simplify, deduce, formulate, blend, suppose, invent, imagine, devise, compose, combine, rank, recommend, defend, choose.

10. Have everyone turn in a paper. In her classic, Homework: A New Direction (1992), Neila Connors reminded teachers to have all students turn in a paper, regardless of whether they did the assignment. If a student doesn’t have his homework, he writes on the paper the name of the assignment and why he didn’t do it.

11. Do not give homework passes. I used to do this; then I realized how much it minimized the importance of homework. It’s like saying, “Oh, well, the homework really wasn’t that important to your learning. You’ll learn just as well without it.” Homework should be so productive for students that missing it is like missing the lesson itself.

12. Integrate homework with other subjects. One assignment can count in two classes. Such assignments are usually complex enough to warrant the dual grade and it’s a way to work smarter, not harder, for both students and teachers. Teachers can split the pile of papers to grade, then share the grades with each other, and students don’t have homework piling up in multiple classes.

There are times when every teacher on the team assigns a half-hour assignment, and so do the elective or encore class teachers. This could mean three to four hours of homework for the student, which is inappropriate for young adolescents.

13. Occasionally, let students identify what homework would be most effective. Sometimes the really creative assignments are the ones that students design themselves. After teaching a lesson, ask your students what it would take to practice the material so well it became clearly understood. Many of the choices will be rigorous and very appropriate.

This is one reason I always recommend that, as a basic premise, we avoid Monday morning quizzes and weekend or holiday homework assignments. Sure, there will be exceptions when long-term projects come due. But if we are really about teaching so that students learn and not about appearing rigorous and assigning tasks to show that we have taught, then we’ll carefully consider all the effects of our homework expectations. Our students will be more productive at school for having healthier lives at home.

▶ More resources from Rick Wormeli:

Although Rick never mentions the word homework in this article about helping adolescent students improve their “executive function,” you will immediately see the connections! At the AMLE website .

NEXT: In our final excerpt from Day One & Beyond, Rick Wormeli shares his approach to homework assessment – with an clear emphasis on maintaining teacher sanity.

His books include Meet Me in the Middle ; Day One and Beyond ; Fair Isn’t Always Equal: Assessment and Grading in the Differentiated Classroom ; Differentiation: From Planning to Practice; Metaphors & Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject, and Summarization in Any Subject , plus The Collected Writings (So Far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I Learned about Teaching Along the Way .

He is currently working on his first young adult fiction novel and a new book on homework practices in the 21 st century.

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This is a really great article. It has helped me tremendously in making new and better decisions about homework.

Fabulous sage advice! Although I love every single suggestion you’ve included, I am particularly fond of the elimination of the “homework pass”. As a former middle-level teacher and administrator, I too found the homework pass diminished the importance of follow-up work – a necessary component in determining the level of student understanding.

I do give 2 passes, but they just extend due date by a day. And if not used, they may be returned at the end of the 9 weeks for extra credit.

Rick Wormeli’s ideas and tips in this article continue to be stimulating and useful. That said, it’s been more than a decade since the first edition of his book on grading, homework and assessment, Fair Isn’t Always Equal appeared.

In the intervening years, Rick’s thinking about homework has benefited from his work with teachers and in schools and plenty of debate. In April 2018, he published a new 2nd edition of Fair Isn’t Always Equal that includes an even deeper discussion of homework and its relationship to best practice, differentiation, and the moral obligation of educators to insist on effective homework policies.

Visitors to the Stenhouse page for the new book can preview the *entire* text for free, so be sure to check that out.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the new book:

Tenet: Homework should enable students to practice what they have already learned in class and should not present new content for the first time. Principled Responses:

• I will not assign homework to students who do not understand the content. • I will give homework to some students and no homework or different assignments to others, depending on their proficiency. • I will use exit slips and formative assessment during class so I can determine proper after-school practice for each student. • I will not give homework because parents and administrators expect me to do so, or assign homework because it’s a particular day of the week. • I will assign homework only if it furthers students’ proficiency in the field we’re studying.

Thanks to Rick for giving us permission to share this!

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28 Ideas On How To Make Homework Fun For Students

Do your children seem to need continual nagging to complete their homework? If your answer is “yes,” then don’t worry; we’ve all been there. Parents naturally want their kids to advance and do well in class, but after a full day of paper, pens, and books, many students won’t feel like doing their assignments.

No matter what the ages or grades of the students are, academic burnout may happen to any student, which affects overall learning and development. To solve this issue, we have brought 28 ideas on how to make homework fun and interesting for students of any age. Not only for parents but also if you are a tutor, these tricks and tips will come to your use.

28 Ideas on How To Make Homework Fun for Students

Homework enables the students to revise and evaluate the classroom learning and develops a habit of self-study, which in turn helps the students to score better. But it can be energy-draining, challenging, monotonous, and difficult to focus upon for students of any age.

Getting students to enjoy their homework and assignments could be immensely difficult at times. Especially after a long break or vacation, they find it difficult to focus on homework. Simultaneously, the importance of home tasks cannot be ignored. Wondering what the solution is?

It’s easy – why not make the homework fun and engaging? Yes, this is the ALL-IN-ONE solution to create a spark of interest in homework. There is practically a plethora of ways to let students feel enthusiastic while doing homework. However, not every strategy suits every student.

For instance, some students love to go outdoors and complete their homework or study amidst nature. On the other hand, some students simply want to stay indoors and complete home tasks in their study area.

So, while implementing a strategy or adopting ways to make homework fun and interesting, you must make sure you are doing the right thing for the right individual so that the student receives maximum benefits.

Here are 28 brilliant ideas that will guide you on how to make homework fun for elementary, middle, and high schoolers. Take a look:

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1. rewards are magical motivators.

It’s nothing new to provide children with little rewards in the classroom. But when it comes to the concept of homework for students, these approaches are rarely used. Instructors aren’t always aware of what’s offered or if it’s useful, and some parents may create their rewards. A great idea is to offer rewards inside the classroom.

Giving out vouchers, stickers, snacks, toys, or meal coupons that let youngsters earn money by doing their homework is something we advocate. The advantages of these magical motivators include having a friend sitting next to you in class, access to the internet, and unscheduled time in the classroom. If they link accomplishing their tasks to positive classroom experiences, students will be more engaged and motivated both inside and outside of the classroom.

2. Get Some Favorite Snacks

How to make homework fun and captivating? Let’s face the truth: A hungry student will be disinterested, uninspired, and miserable. Give them something healthful and palpable to eat while they do their schoolwork because most young kids are ravenous when they get home from school. Some options are apple slices, popcorn, grapes, crackers, flapjacks, and cheese.

If you want to attempt something a little more systematic, make a list of nutritious after-school snack suggestions and recipes and try them out every day. A delicious, crunchy apple is one of the healthiest nutrients for youngsters’ brain development. Some other nutritious and palpable snacks for students are Pancakes, Butter Popcorn, Fruit-flavored Yogurt, nut mix, sliced pears with ricotta cheese, Banana Smoothies, etc.

3. Beat the Clock

This is perfect for young kids who are reluctant to complete their schoolwork. Try it out, and you’ll thank us later. Young children like competing in races. By creating timed tasks, you may make schoolwork feel more like a race. For instance, keep track of the number of words they can spell properly or the number of arithmetic problems they can do in five minutes. Challenge your child to beat their previous best the next day.

To make it more fun, a little competition with siblings or best friends will work great. Nevertheless, make sure that the competition is healthy and doesn’t turn into an aggressive one. Often, students’ psychology works differently, and they tend to be violent in these kinds of situations.

4. Get A Homework Buddy

Allow your child to have a buddy or two over to study if they struggle with a particular topic or have difficulties concentrating in a quiet, empty room. If a second child is too distracting, set an example by helping your youngster. You may pay bills, prepare supper, respond to emails, or even work on a crossword puzzle or other mental exercise while they are doing their schoolwork.

Working on homework teaches children that work is a part of life, not just school, and fosters friendship without being overpowering.

5. Design an Awesome Workspace

Improve the area where your kids complete their schoolwork to increase efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. Have tools and materials available, such as cool notepads or notebooks, colored pens, highlighters, and sticky notes, to assist students in completing difficult projects.

Use calendars, whiteboards, chalkboards, corkboards, or even simply paper and tape to help them visualize and keep track of all they need to complete. You may also decorate it with art and other items that inspire you. For pupils older than 5 years old, you may also hang up some aesthetically pleasing motivating quotations and photos in their study space to help them stay focused and goal-oriented.

6. Make Them Feel Comfortable

The comfort level of the students is the first and foremost thing you have to take care of while making them complete their homework. Not every learner has the same comfort level in the same ways, and these levels tend to differ from one person to another. It’s the responsibility of a parent or a teacher to understand their comfort zone and then plan accordingly.

For instance, provide them with a variety of alternatives or let them design their strategy. You might also inquire as to what time they like to complete their assignment. You won’t need to repeatedly remind people of their duties if you reach an agreement.

7. Incorporate Intervals and Breaks

Some learners might be able to finish their entire load of homework in one sitting. If your class has any pupils that can’t sit still, think about introducing breaks into the assignment process. Weekly study regimens can accommodate breaks.

Give a food break, allow them to complete one level of a video game, or let them talk to a buddy during a quick break. To establish expectations for when and how homework breaks should be taken, teachers might talk about these concepts with parents and students.

This functions in two main ways. It first rewards pupils for finishing their schoolwork. In addition, it gives them a mental break so they can come back to their job reenergized and motivated.

8. Role Plays Work Wonders

Create your little school and let your youngster take the role of the instructor to make enjoyable learning-based games. Assume the position of the student, and have your youngster explain a concept to you in the teacher’s role. This game will help players better comprehend the topic and develop their logical and reasoning abilities. It works especially well with courses that call for theory, like science.

By letting your kid pick their favorite stuffed animals and playthings and placing them in their little classroom, you can make schoolwork enjoyable. Begin by registering, saying “mummy,” “gift,” “Mr. Teddy,” etc. Since kids love to pretend to be teachers, you’ll soon notice that your kid is becoming more self-assured.

9. Make Them Stay Positive and Focused

Ensure to keep the students’ attitudes toward school and the values of their schoolwork are always positive. To keep them inspired and on track, shower your youngster with compliments on how great they’re doing. If they are getting pissed off with the pressure of homework, make them understand its importance and how positively it can impact their learning.

Spend five minutes after each homework session going over your child’s accomplishments. Have a look at our selection of free-to-download home learning packs if you’re out of things to do. To keep them motivated, you can reward or recognize their achievements in front of their peers. This will not only boost their confidence but also will help them maintain a positive outlook toward homework and studies.

10. Take It Outside

Outdoor learning is one of the most feasible ways to do homework with fun in a natural environment. If the weather is good, create a cozy and safe study space outside and let the student finish all the homework outdoors.

Studies also demonstrate that being outside, nearer to nature enhances productivity. The fresh air can aid students’ attention if they have spent the entire day in a classroom. In between jobs, rewarding them with a brief game of football or Frisbee will keep them engaged. You can conduct some fun outdoor Math or English fun homework activities.

11. Altering the homework concept

Many kids feel burdened by their homework assignments. What if, though, you adopt a whole new approach to homework? It can be argued that schoolwork has a lot of unfavorable associations. These concepts usually start early in life and persist into college.

By referring to assignments in different ways, teachers can change these mental habits. Better ways to describe homework include home learning, brain workouts, and study time. You might try using these phrases in place of homework in the classroom.

12. Get Help If You Need

Homework can be frustrating if your child doesn’t understand the material or gets bored easily. Furthermore, excessive pressurizing or insisting on too much can mess up the student’s psychology. To be honest, in extreme cases, none of the methods will work. If your child or student is struggling beyond the normal limit, get them some expert help!

Education Advisors have plenty of advice for students who are not able to cope with homework. They also conduct counseling sessions from time to time in case it’s required.

13. Go for Audio-Visual Resources

Engaging additional senses in the at-home learning process is another technique to cheer up your boring assignments. Focus may be improved by using a child’s perception of touch, smell, or taste in a unique manner.

Sending kids home with instructions for making scented play dough, for instance, improve learning. The dough may be used in classes including math and spatial concepts. Plus, the aroma of scented/colored clays keeps kids focused while they work. Additionally, it enables children to link the smell to what they learned, improving memory and recall.

Another item that teachers might give their pupils as a take-home is a stress ball. Before, during, or after tasks, using a stress ball can encourage creative thinking and anxiety reduction positively.

14. Meditation Can Reduce Stress

Stress is not something that happens only to adults. With the increased competition in academics, young learners nowadays are suffering from severe stress, which ushers’ negative impacts on their mental health. Sometimes, both the little children and older students can’t express this stress and fail to explain how they are feeling.

Homework pressure often creates such challenging situations which disrupt the emotional equilibrium of youngsters. In situations like this, meditation can reduce stress and improve focus. Positive thinking, fear and the tension and anxiety that lead to depression may all be lessened by meditation. Being aware without judgment is one of the foundational elements of meditation, and this attitude of acceptance may ward against unpleasant thoughts.

15. Make It a Group Effort

Since time immemorial, team working is super effective for any activity. The same applies to homework as well. If students sit for the home task in a group, they will be able to wrap all the assignments up quickly.

Now the question is – how? Teamwork involves group discussions as well as brainstorming, which gives rise to new ideas. Students try to develop new ways to complete homework through mutual discussion.

16. Take Help from Learning Apps and Libraries

If your child struggles with their homework, it can be difficult for you as well. Games and visual examples in amusing math practice applications may be a terrific way to give your youngster practice with things he is having trouble with. Therefore, make schoolwork enjoyable for your youngster by downloading an app that simplifies the subject.

There are so many online applications and libraries that will help students enjoy fun and encouraging homework sessions. If the toddler or an older student specifically refers to a particular app or a website, talk to him/her about it properly. Then visit the online resource, and if you think it is a legit and helpful one, let your child or student use it during his/her homework time.

17. Tell Them Not to Take It Too Seriously

There are more important things in life than homework and grades. Too much focus on grades can affect your child’s love for learning. Think about what values you want to instill in your child and make sure the homework is not getting in the way.

If you believe your child’s teacher is giving out too much homework after you see your child demonstrate an understanding of the subject, don’t be afraid to voice your concern. Even if nothing changes, it will show your children that you care and empathize with them. That matters a lot!

18. Storytelling Can Be a Great Idea

Storytelling is a fantastic idea to make children complete their homework without facing any boredom. Especially for specific subjects like Math, History, and Literature, storytelling develops a context that allows the students to grasp things very easily.

If you find a student is finding it difficult to understand a concept and complete assignments on it, you can give a try to the storytelling method a since it works well. Storytelling has the power to captivate learners and keep them engaged irrespective of their age and grades.

19. Create A Homework Mood

Creating a mood for homework is a bit difficult for younger students but setting the right environment can help them complete the tasks as quickly as possible. However, it’s not an issue for the senior students but can be a bit overwhelming for the little kids.

You can select a comfortable location for them to study and use their favorite stickers, lights, etc., to decorate the space. Keeping in mind the results as well as their abilities to take the pressure, set goals and establish rewards. It’s vital to make them understand the goals and disclose a bit about the rewards but don’t let them know exactly what’s going to happen. This will create an enthusiasm to complete the homework in no time.

20. Turn on Some Music

The psychological effects of music are undeniable. Music brings concentration and helps to focus on a particular work pleasantly. Then why not use it for your children’s homework? Science dictates that music is the best aid for studying.

Play some soft music while the student is doing his/her homework and this will help to create an ambiance. You can also play cool, energetic, upbeat music since it radiates energetic vibes and the student will find immense energy as well as positivity to complete the tasks.

21. Ask Them to Do the Tough Tasks First

One more cool thing to try out is doing the tough tasks first. It’s a perfect strategy if the student has a list of various tasks of different levels of complexity. You will be able to realize how much time he/she needs to complete the tasks and edit afterward if needed.

Completing the more complex tasks at first enables a student to think and decide critically. The remaining time can be enjoyed with much lower stress while doing the easier assignments. If your child gets bored very quickly you can try this method out.

22. Get Creative

Wondering how to make homework fun creatively? Homework doesn’t sound exciting to students. To be more specific, solving sums after sums or writing science projects doesn’t sound fun alone. Rather, if you mingle these tasks with an artsy adventure, the same old boring homework sessions become interesting.

For instance, you can ask them to paint out the math problems, prepare a model for their science projects, or act a portion of the history or literature books. Some other effective ideas may include creating a range of paintings while explaining a paragraph to a child, making clay characters, and doing some moves with the music.

23. Doing Homework at School

Nowadays, as the syllabuses are changing, students have too much pressure from homework to deal with. After coming home from school, it’s quite natural for them to feel exhausted. At times it becomes impossible for a kid to keep their eyes open for homework.

The best remedy here is to complete the majority of their homework at school. Your child also doesn’t have to stay up all night looking for answers or trying to understand how to remember academic facts. They can use their free time at school to complete some of the homework to stay relaxed later. Also, completing homework with peers involves so much engagement and fun.

24. Ask Them to Work on Different Subjects in a Session

Are you trying to know how to make homework fun without putting in much effort? Plan a routine for your child so that they can work on different subjects in a single session. Try to mix and match the subjects to make them feel comfortable with the pace of the study.

Working on a maximum of 3 subjects a session will help a student to get rid of the homework quickly without considering it as a pressure. Ensure they are not in a rush to complete one subject after another. Make it as systematic and orderly as you can to avoid any unwanted confusion.

25. Get Academic Help

Getting a little homework help is a feasible way to make homework fun. Nevertheless, you must make sure that none of you, the teachers, or the program facilitators are not spoon-feeding them, or else it will affect the student’s development in terms of learning.

If there is a math problem that is too difficult to solve or a paragraph with heavy words, you or the tutor can give your helping hand to the student so that he/she can complete it on his/her own. For instance, you can give a clue to solve the sum or narrate the context of the paragraph.

26. Planning Is the Key

Planning is a powerful habit to make homework sessions fun and organized. Not only at school, but also this habit will help a student throughout his/her life. It’s required for a student to be extremely serious about homework in a studying period and systematic planning can help in completing all the assignments on time.

If your child is in high school or middle school, you can guide him/her to make homework routines. However, elementary school kids and preschool students need their parents’ or teachers’ assistance to make advanced homework plans.

27. Ask Them to Write on Their Favorite Topics

Working on something you love will make you feel more connected to the work. The same applies to both the kids’ homework and older students’ homework. If you are thinking about how to make doing homework fun, you can ask them to write a paragraph or a short essay on their favorite topics.

To implement this strategy, first, talk to the students on a one-on-one basis and try to know their individual preferences in terms of writing. Then assign them a task where they will write whatever they want on their favorite topics. This will act as a warm-up session before doing the homework.

28. Provide Choice

One of the key reasons why younger and older students become disengaged with their homework is they find it meaningless. This is where the mentors and the parents have to play the biggest role. They need to make the student understand why homework is important and how it can benefit them in the future.

This will make the kids’ homework sessions more engaging and they will be able to connect emotionally or personally. How to make homework fun in this way? It’s simple, provide the students with more choices while assigning the homework. For instance, if there is a tough project, they can choose to work alone on it or work with partners.

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Elementary school homework tips.

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice the concepts. But you have to be very careful while making them do the home tasks as at this age they don’t develop an understanding regarding the benefits of homework. To them, homework is just something that parents and teachers use to restrict them from doing what they want.

Below are some effective tips on how to make homework fun for kindergarten students.

Make sure kids have a creative, engaging, and well-lit place to do the homework.
Give the kids delicious snacks from time to time so that they don’t get distracted due to hunger.
Encourage the children to complete their homework by giving them small rewards or recognizing their efforts to make the entire process more manageable.
Instead of dictating to them what to do and threatening them, be a mentor, a leader, and a motivator.
Create a homework routine for elementary students manually or use desktop app for planning your homework. Don’t forget to keep short breaks in between.
Try to keep distractions to a minimum. This means no phone calls, loud music, and TV during homework time.

Set good examples for them but without comparing them with anybody. Have you ever seen your little one saving money? Point that quality out, praise him/her for it, and set it as an example.

Middle School Homework Tips

Middle school students develop a fair understanding of the importance of homework. So, you are not supposed to face much trouble to make them complete their tasks. Check out these middle school homework tips below. These tips will work wonders if you are looking for ways to make homework fun for 7th graders or 8th graders.

Designate a specific amount of time for homework. This will help them to complete work on time.
Help them prioritize which tasks to do on a priority basis. In this way, they will develop the ability to make decisions.
Continuously encourage them to evaluate their work so that they can find the mistakes and correct them on their own.
Put away the phone to prevent them from being distracted from time to time.
When needed, help them to complete homework instead of spoon-feeding the whole thing. Give clues to solve a sum, point out some important areas, or explain them in a paragraph so that they can complete the next tasks by themselves.
Don’t pressurize or force yourself to do homework. Parents need to know when to stop, especially when they are feeling exhausted, frustrated, and confused.

High School Homework Tips

When it comes to homework, high school students are better able to manage their time, stay focused and finish their tasks. This enables them to understand the value of homework. They don’t do any tantrums and get less distracted because they understand the consequences of not completing home tasks on time. But if you want to know how to make homework more enjoyable for high school students throughout the school year, here are some effective tips:

Tell them to write down their homework every day in a notebook, or a planner to keep it more organized.
Ask them to write their homework with a blue pen on a white sheet to remember their writing. Also, it’s the best combo to do homework faster.
Help your teens to divide their homework schedule in a planned way and keep short breaks to freshen up their minds. For instance, if they work for 30 minutes, they can take a 5 minutes break.
Doing homework with buddies is a proven method to complete homework on time and also in an accurate manner.
If they get stuck while doing any specific homework, ask them to take help from online resources, libraries, video demonstrations, and journals.

Homework Dos and Don’ts

Let’s face it – nobody loves homework although it’s super important for your child’s learning and development. While high school students understand the importance and need of doing school assignments at home, elementary and preschool children can’t develop the understanding at their age.

Several things are to be kept in mind while expecting homework from students in proper time. To make the students complete their homework happily, we have brought some amazing dos and don’ts that parents or teachers need to follow:

Homework Do’s

1. monitor the answers.

After your child has completed his/her homework, check it once to find what went right and what went wrong. If you find any mistake in his/her work, try not to point that out directly. Instead, give your youngster clues so that he/she can find out the mistakes now.

2. Remove the Distractions

Thinking about how to make homework more fun for your child? Remove the distractions from the study room first including social media on the computer, mobile phones, unnecessary toys, etc. Remember, a decluttered environment is the reason behind a decluttered head. They will be able to focus more on the homework when there isn’t a pile of distractions around them.

3. Be A Cheerleader

Always be your child’s motivator when he/she is doing homework. Students may not be correct always but humiliating them may make them demotivated and frustrated at the same time. Celebrate small successes such as completion of the tasks within time, the maximum number of correct answers, the maximum time the child has devoted to homework, etc. Give treats like candies, stickers, pens/pencils, and colored boxes to celebrate their success.

4. Work in Collaboration

The parents and the children need to work together in terms of homework. There must be a proper channel of communication between both parties so that the child’s overall performance can be monitored.

Homework Don’ts

1. don’t force them to homework.

Forcing a student to do the homework can bring immensely negative results. Children won’t like homework – it’s quite normal but forcefully making them do it is tremendously fatal as it will develop a permanent fear or discomfort that will hamper their overall growth.

2. Don’t Show Them Your Frustration

Kids have a lot of tantrums. Especially, the tantrums increase while doing homework. Often teachers and parents get frustrated but showing them the frustration is not at all a good idea. Not only will the child become stubborn but also, they will develop a fear of doing assignments or getting help from you. If you want to make homework fun for 6th graders or students of any other grades, don’t show your frustration in front of them.

3. Don’t Compare with Their Peers

Comparison is something that demotivates a child to a great extent. It develops a deep resentment in their mind which doesn’t fade away even after growing older. Comparing their grades or skills with their peers is probably the worst idea to make students do homework.

4. Don’t Keep Electronic Devices in Front of Them

Yes, you can give the students electronic gadgets for a few minutes as small rewards but don’t keep the devices in front of them all the time when they are doing homework. This may loosen their concentration and will make them distracted from their respective tasks.

How A Homework Planning App Can Help a Student?

A homework app is the best time-management tool that enables students to organize everything they need to do throughout a week, month, academic year, or semester. It’s an easy way to keep your homework sessions organized. In case you are still thinking about how to make homework fun for your child, software with proper features of homework planning can help him/her out.

The academic pressure on school children sometimes becomes too difficult to handle, especially when there is so much to do. This is where student planners for their home assignments are found to be beneficial. Here is an explanation of how an efficient home assignment planning tool can help students finish their tasks on time:

1. Gives Students A Break

It might also be helpful to make sure that kids have some downtime to unwind and not become overburdened with assignments. If teachers are assigning homework through software, they will see how long a piece of homework will take to be completed, and they can allocate the tasks accordingly scheduling breaks in between.

2. Reduces Stress

Homework pressure may not sound like a big deal to you because you have already left those days behind but to your child, it’s a headache. The fear of being scolded by parents/teachers is one of their biggest concerns to them. Thanks to digital planners, these tools know exactly how to help each student in a customized way.

3. Increases Productivity

How to make homework interesting? Students who use a school planner are more productive and can manage their time more effectively. Students today struggle with procrastination because the internet age offers so many diversions. However, if they have noted down the tasks they must complete, they will be more motivated to complete them.

4. Easier for Parents and Teachers

A homework app with intuitive features of planning helps to complete an assignment within time in a systematic manner. Younger students who still rely on the help of their parents and teachers to do their schoolwork often fail to inform them about their homework status. Having homework software can easily sort this problem out and reduces mentors’ work and hassle.

Our Product

How to make homework fun with clarifi.

To assist students to achieve their highest potential, Clarifi is a homework software that acts as an ideal digital homework attention coach. We are dedicated to helping students achieve their academic goals. The pupils may complete their homework independently with the help of this digital planning app for homework.

It is a straightforward and uncomplicated desktop program that gives them more confidence to finish their assignment as quickly and effectively as possible. It is the only research-backed desktop application that enables children who are easily distracted to do their schoolwork without a parent watching over them. Monitoring student behavior is the only way to be sure they are doing their assignments.

However, keeping track of pupils’ activity is a time-consuming and important duty. However, Clarifi is available to make this procedure as easy as possible. With the aid of this program, students can effortlessly enter each homework assignment and keep track of the due dates for each one based on the class or the current day.

They receive prizes from the automated coach for maintaining concentration and doing their homework. When all pupils turn in their schoolwork on time, they will receive diamonds as a reward. This element motivates pupils to develop the positive habit of finishing their home assignments on time. Clarifi is an easy digital homework attention planner that provides kids with the ability to filter out distractions, improve their executive functioning, and keep all of their assignments organized in one location.

Clarifi guarantees to raise their capacity for concentration and focus as well as their academic performance. It incorporates functions that provide users the means to remain centered, motivated, and organized while finishing their schoolwork on their own. When kids use the app, it is specially designed with cutting-edge technology that blocks all other apps.

Generating an undistracted and focused environment for students with Clarifi is the answer to “how to make homework less boring.”

Students Can Now Complete Homework with Fun!

With these tricks and tips, students can now efficiently engage themselves in homework. Learners need to study and complete their homework/assignments with a positive mindset and not forcefully. As soon as a student starts doing his/her homework strenuously, the interest is eventually lost, leading to mistakes and burnout.

But with the tricks mentioned above, homework sessions can now be immensely fun and interesting. Whether you are a teacher, parent, or student, these are some tried and tested ways to complete home tasks engagingly. Stay tuned to Clarifi for similar informative blogs like this. If to need help with your children’s homework and know more about how to make homework fun get in touch with Clarifi today.

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Teaching excellence & educational innovation, creating assignments.

Here are some general suggestions and questions to consider when creating assignments. There are also many other resources in print and on the web that provide examples of interesting, discipline-specific assignment ideas.

Consider your learning objectives.

What do you want students to learn in your course? What could they do that would show you that they have learned it? To determine assignments that truly serve your course objectives, it is useful to write out your objectives in this form: I want my students to be able to ____. Use active, measurable verbs as you complete that sentence (e.g., compare theories, discuss ramifications, recommend strategies), and your learning objectives will point you towards suitable assignments.

Design assignments that are interesting and challenging.

This is the fun side of assignment design. Consider how to focus students’ thinking in ways that are creative, challenging, and motivating. Think beyond the conventional assignment type! For example, one American historian requires students to write diary entries for a hypothetical Nebraska farmwoman in the 1890s. By specifying that students’ diary entries must demonstrate the breadth of their historical knowledge (e.g., gender, economics, technology, diet, family structure), the instructor gets students to exercise their imaginations while also accomplishing the learning objectives of the course (Walvoord & Anderson, 1989, p. 25).

Double-check alignment.

After creating your assignments, go back to your learning objectives and make sure there is still a good match between what you want students to learn and what you are asking them to do. If you find a mismatch, you will need to adjust either the assignments or the learning objectives. For instance, if your goal is for students to be able to analyze and evaluate texts, but your assignments only ask them to summarize texts, you would need to add an analytical and evaluative dimension to some assignments or rethink your learning objectives.

Name assignments accurately.

Students can be misled by assignments that are named inappropriately. For example, if you want students to analyze a product’s strengths and weaknesses but you call the assignment a “product description,” students may focus all their energies on the descriptive, not the critical, elements of the task. Thus, it is important to ensure that the titles of your assignments communicate their intention accurately to students.

Consider sequencing.

Think about how to order your assignments so that they build skills in a logical sequence. Ideally, assignments that require the most synthesis of skills and knowledge should come later in the semester, preceded by smaller assignments that build these skills incrementally. For example, if an instructor’s final assignment is a research project that requires students to evaluate a technological solution to an environmental problem, earlier assignments should reinforce component skills, including the ability to identify and discuss key environmental issues, apply evaluative criteria, and find appropriate research sources.

Think about scheduling.

Consider your intended assignments in relation to the academic calendar and decide how they can be reasonably spaced throughout the semester, taking into account holidays and key campus events. Consider how long it will take students to complete all parts of the assignment (e.g., planning, library research, reading, coordinating groups, writing, integrating the contributions of team members, developing a presentation), and be sure to allow sufficient time between assignments.

Check feasibility.

Is the workload you have in mind reasonable for your students? Is the grading burden manageable for you? Sometimes there are ways to reduce workload (whether for you or for students) without compromising learning objectives. For example, if a primary objective in assigning a project is for students to identify an interesting engineering problem and do some preliminary research on it, it might be reasonable to require students to submit a project proposal and annotated bibliography rather than a fully developed report. If your learning objectives are clear, you will see where corners can be cut without sacrificing educational quality.

Articulate the task description clearly.

If an assignment is vague, students may interpret it any number of ways – and not necessarily how you intended. Thus, it is critical to clearly and unambiguously identify the task students are to do (e.g., design a website to help high school students locate environmental resources, create an annotated bibliography of readings on apartheid). It can be helpful to differentiate the central task (what students are supposed to produce) from other advice and information you provide in your assignment description.

Establish clear performance criteria.

Different instructors apply different criteria when grading student work, so it’s important that you clearly articulate to students what your criteria are. To do so, think about the best student work you have seen on similar tasks and try to identify the specific characteristics that made it excellent, such as clarity of thought, originality, logical organization, or use of a wide range of sources. Then identify the characteristics of the worst student work you have seen, such as shaky evidence, weak organizational structure, or lack of focus. Identifying these characteristics can help you consciously articulate the criteria you already apply. It is important to communicate these criteria to students, whether in your assignment description or as a separate rubric or scoring guide . Clearly articulated performance criteria can prevent unnecessary confusion about your expectations while also setting a high standard for students to meet.

Specify the intended audience.

Students make assumptions about the audience they are addressing in papers and presentations, which influences how they pitch their message. For example, students may assume that, since the instructor is their primary audience, they do not need to define discipline-specific terms or concepts. These assumptions may not match the instructor’s expectations. Thus, it is important on assignments to specify the intended audience http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm (e.g., undergraduates with no biology background, a potential funder who does not know engineering).

Specify the purpose of the assignment.

If students are unclear about the goals or purpose of the assignment, they may make unnecessary mistakes. For example, if students believe an assignment is focused on summarizing research as opposed to evaluating it, they may seriously miscalculate the task and put their energies in the wrong place. The same is true they think the goal of an economics problem set is to find the correct answer, rather than demonstrate a clear chain of economic reasoning. Consequently, it is important to make your objectives for the assignment clear to students.

Specify the parameters.

If you have specific parameters in mind for the assignment (e.g., length, size, formatting, citation conventions) you should be sure to specify them in your assignment description. Otherwise, students may misapply conventions and formats they learned in other courses that are not appropriate for yours.

A Checklist for Designing Assignments

Here is a set of questions you can ask yourself when creating an assignment.

Provided a written description of the assignment (in the syllabus or in a separate document)?
Specified the purpose of the assignment?
Indicated the intended audience?
Articulated the instructions in precise and unambiguous language?
Provided information about the appropriate format and presentation (e.g., page length, typed, cover sheet, bibliography)?
Indicated special instructions, such as a particular citation style or headings?
Specified the due date and the consequences for missing it?
Articulated performance criteria clearly?
Indicated the assignment’s point value or percentage of the course grade?
Provided students (where appropriate) with models or samples?

Adapted from the WAC Clearinghouse at http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop10e.cfm .

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Summer homework may start as early as elementary school, but you don’t have to do it the way it’s always been done! Veteran educators like third-grade teacher Alycia Zimmerman have spent time thinking about how to make summer homework meaningful and interesting enough that students buy in—and even want to do it.

Read on for Zimmerman’s summer homework game plan and ideas for how to make summer assignments more fun for everyone.

1. Try a New Student Meet and Greet

If possible, meet your incoming students before summer break (even if it’s virtual!) to instill the importance of summer learning.

At the end of the school year, coordinate with the teachers of your incoming students to swap classes for a period. Introduce yourselves to your future students and build excitement for the fun and challenging learning ahead and the very “grown-up” summer homework you will assign.

“We’ve been far more successful in instilling the importance of our summer assignments when presenting about it face-to-face rather than just sending a packet of directions home cold,” says Zimmernan. “The students sit on the edges of their seats as we talk about the importance of summer reading and our certainty that they will do everything they can to 'keep their brains healthy, pink, and strong’ over the summer.”

2. Emphasize the Importance of Summer Reading

Talk about the best summer assignment of all: diving into books!

Reading should be a treat, not a menial assignment, so Zimmerman doesn’t feel guilty about making reading the bulk of her summer homework. Here are some of her most effective strategies for promoting summer reading:

Have students fill out a log to keep track of the books and other texts they read over the summer. It isn’t necessary to require a certain number of books or specific titles. Simply ask that they find books they love and spend lots of time reading them.

Have your current students write book reviews of their favorite titles to send home with your rising students. Invite your current students to serve as reading ambassadors and speak to the younger students about the importance and joys of reading. When coming from slightly older peers, the message is very well received.

And of course: Sign your students up for the Scholastic Summer Reading Program ! From May 9 to August 19, your students can visit Scholastic Home Base to participate in the free, fun, and safe summer reading program . As part of the program, kids can read e-books, attend author events, and keep Reading Streaks™ to help unlock a donation of 100K books from Scholastic – distributed to kids with limited or no access to books by Save the Children.

3. Share Fun and Educational Activities

Direct your students to fun (and educational) activities.

When considering other homework, the best options are activities that students will be motivated to do because they’re entertaining.

Give your incoming students the “everything is better in moderation” speech so they understand that they shouldn’t play hours of computer games every day this summer. If possible, send them home with printable and book-based packs to polish their skills for the year ahead (you can even pair these with your own assignments):

4. Connect Through the Mail

Stay connected with your students over the summer through cards.

Giving incoming students the opportunity to connect with you and with each other can motivate them to complete summer assignments. Here’s one plan for connecting via letters:

Have your incoming students mail you a letter of introduction. Explain that you want to hear about their summer activities, their hobbies, their families, and anything special they want you to know before the school year begins.

When you receive letters from your students, send a postcard back with a brief response. Tell them a bit about your summer plan, and let them know you can’t wait to see them in the fall.

Encourage them to write again!

You can also pair up students and have them write to each other over the summer. In September, they can bring their pen pal letters to class to display on the bulletin board.

Take advantage of everyone’s increasing familiarity with virtual resources by connecting online, too! Post a short video, article, or question once a week on your classroom's online platform, and invite both incoming students and rising former students to write their thoughts in the comments section. Be sure to moderate their comments and enjoy their back-and-forth dialogues as they engage with each other.

Get started by shopping the best books for summer reading below! You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store .

19 Engagement Activities for to Make Learning Fun for Students

An image of a Poll Everywhere Competition Leaderboard.

As a university professor, you're no stranger to a couple of blank faces staring up at you while delivering a lecture. Students already have too many things on their plates, and it's becoming harder to hold their attention in the classroom.

When you add complicated topics and monotonous routines to the mix, it only gets worse. This is why it's important to spend time on engagement activities for students to keep them interested in the subject matter and improve retention.

A 2022 study found that gamification improves feelings of enjoyment and self-efficacy, in turn improving student engagement. Another study found that while this method is gaining traction in higher education due to its positive effects, it’s only effective when it’s planned out well.

To help you do that, we’ve curated a list of 19 student engagement activities to help you create a learning environment that students look forward to being in.

1. Find someone who…

Typically used for icebreaker activities, this activity can also help students review course material while creating a sense of community among them.

You need to create a list of notes that contain statements, questions, or things related to usual student interests. Hand one note to each student and ask them to find classmates who match the statement or have the answer to a particular question.

For example, if a note says, “Find someone who loves non-fiction writing,” the student has to find somebody with that interest.

You can even use this method to review questions before an exam. For instance, create a pair of cards with a question and corresponding answer. Hand students the cards and ask them to find a partner who holds the right card.

2. Thumbs up/thumbs down

This student engagement strategy is a straightforward method to gauge if students understand particular concepts or to check their knowledge of specific topics.

You must read specific statements like “There are seven noble gasses in the periodic table,” and students must respond with a thumbs up or down to represent “true” or “false.” Based on the number of responses, you can see if students retain what you're teaching and use that feedback to improve your lectures.

If you want a faster and easier way to record student responses, use a Poll Everywhere Multiple Choice question. Type your statements into the prompt section and make the two multiple choice options “true” or “false”. Students will be able to choose using any device. The poll will record the responses and save it to your account, which you can easily access after class is over.

This activity also creates a more inclusive atmosphere by removing public speaking anxiety.

3. Secret answer

Peer pressure can impact how students answer a certain question. For instance, if you ask them to upvote/downvote an answer, some might get influenced by other students. In that case, you can't gauge who hasn't understood the concept.

Instead, use the secret answer method. If it's in person, ask students to write down their answers and hand them to you. If it's an online learning session , use polling software like Poll Everywhere to create multiple choice questions and ask students to choose their answers.

A multiple choice question activity in Poll Everywhere

4. Anecdotes

How often have you been asked about the real-world applications of a concept? When a student asks such a question, it shows that they’re trying to determine how to apply theory to practical situations. It creates a sense of relatability, making it easier to understand.

Incorporate real-world applications and stories from successful case studies. For example, if you're teaching an economics class, provide case studies or stories of failed policies to make your point. You can also ask students to research case studies that fit this concept.

This helps them apply the concepts they learn at university at work, shaping the way they think about problems while achieving their learning goals.

5. Enactments

While take-home assignments and lectures reinforce knowledge , adding a role-playing element makes it more enjoyable.

For example, if you're conducting a history lecture, ask students to re-enact a historical event or speech. If you're conducting a chemistry lecture, ask students to role-play as chemicals and create a skit. This forces them to think of the topic in greater depth and better understand how it works.

6. Assumption busting

Everybody has preconceived notions about specific topics, but challenging these notions promotes critical thinking. In this activity, you can do just that while guiding students through the process of questioning and analysis to test the validity of these assumptions.

Mention a specific topic and ask students what comes to mind when they think of it. For example, if you're teaching a social sciences class, list out societal stereotypes related to that topic to uncover biases and inaccuracies. After that, take them through the process of fact-checking and narrative-building to see how the stereotype came to be.

This prevents them from taking anything at face value and always doing their due diligence.

7. Brainstorming sessions

When there are too many people, introverted students might not share their ideas. Conduct a brainstorming session to generate new ideas while letting them explore their creative skills.

You have to present a question or topic and then encourage students to share their ideas freely. For instance, use a student engagement tool like a Poll Everywhere to create a Q&A Activity. Let students send in their ideas and allow others to upvote or downvote answers.

It's a particularly effective method for initiating research projects, developing essays, or tackling complex topics.

Brainstorming activity in Poll Everywhere

8. Fishbone technique

Also known as the Ishikawa or Cause and Effect Diagram, the fishbone diagram is a structured method for identifying and analyzing the root causes of a problem. It can be an excellent tool for developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

First, identify the issue and write it at the head of the “fish,” then determine potential causes for that problem and form the “bones.”

Common categories include methods, equipment, people, materials, environment, and policies, but these can be adapted to fit the context of the problem. Students brainstorm potential causes within these categories, adding them to the appropriate “bones.” This visual representation helps organize thoughts and see how various factors interrelate.

A fishbone diagram that breaks down different ways environment can affect a student's learning.

An example of a fishbone diagram

9. A to Z topic summary

In the A to Z topic summary activity, students are tasked with summarizing a topic by finding relevant terms corresponding to each letter of the alphabet.

For example, in biochemistry, that would be the following:

It's a good idea to use it as a study aid or to wrap up a specific unit in the curriculum. It also helps with memory retention. Students actively engage in the process, creating a fun way to interact with the material.

10. Jot it down

Jot it down is an engagement activity that encourages active listening in the classroom. During a lecture or discussion, give students time to “jot down” points, thoughts, or questions about the topic.

Do this regularly or carve out time for quick writing at the end of each session so that students make this a habit. For example, at the end of the session, ask them to write down the main takeaways of the lesson and any related questions. Using those notes, students can do further research to learn more about the topic. The goal is to create a habit of making your own notes while improving knowledge retention.

11. 5-minute debate

Argumentative skills are important, as you’re always expected to defend your ideas and notions. When you help students learn this skill, they’re much more likely to develop nuanced arguments to put their ideas forward. In this exercise, give your whole class a topic on the spot and 10 minutes to prepare their arguments.

You can either do this individually or create small groups. Give them 10 minutes to present their arguments, and they can counter after the other side has given their reasoning. This activity not only encourages students to think quickly but to articulate their thoughts under pressure.

You don’t have to do this with only the subject matter. Instead, make it fun using prompts like:

Would you breathe underwater or in space?
Does social media cause more harm than good?
All families should have a pet. Yes or no?

12. Bounce cards

This activity allows students to develop their listening and engagement skills. Students need to bounce an idea off of what their peers say.

Give each student a card with a list of prompts, questions, or statements related to the lesson and put them in pairs. Every pair goes through the list of prompts one after the other. Their partner has to give an answer to each prompt, as it digs deeper into the topic. The idea is to allow each student to give a clear reasoning for their thought process.

Here’s an example of what a prompt list would look like:

Student 1: Do you think student loans should be forgiven if the government wants more skilled workers?
Student 2: Yes, I do.
Student 1: Why do you say so?
Student 2: Well, because…
Student 1: That’s an excellent point. But I think…
Student 2: I see your point about “...” but what about…?

The goal is to encourage them to get thoughtful responses to the questions instead of point-blank answers. That's why they need to listen carefully and ask follow-up questions. It also enables quieter students to participate in the conversation.

13. Kipling questions

Based on Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “I Keep Six Honest Serving Men,” you need to question the topic at hand using the six Ws:

The technique encourages students to explore a topic comprehensively by asking these fundamental questions. For example, if your students practice their comprehension skills using a story, use these prompts to develop their understanding of the topic, improving their skills.

This activity can be used for individual reflection, group discussions, or frameworks for research projects, as it empowers students to think deeply and from multiple perspectives.

14. Inside-outside circles

In this setup, students form two concentric circles: an inner circle facing outward and an outer circle facing inward. Each student in the inner circle pairs up with a student in the outer circle.

Next, you give each student a prompt to discuss for a set amount of time. When they're done discussing, ask the outer circle to move steps to their left while giving students a different prompt to discuss now. This continues until students have interacted with several classmates.

Move around the circle to see whether students are actually discussing their prompts and not shying away from the activity. It gives everyone a chance to interact and be heard.

15. Topic reversal

This teaching strategy aims to allow students to argue against their own beliefs or the accepted understanding of a topic.

For instance, if you're teaching a sustainability class, instead of asking them to support climate change initiatives, ask them to discuss it from the perspective of a climate change skeptic.

It lets them look at a problem or discussion from another perspective, helping them build better arguments for their viewpoints.

16. Find your match

Best for in-person classes, it’s an interactive activity that fosters collaboration and peer-to-peer learning.

Give your students a card with a piece of information, a question, or half of a pair (e.g., synonym-antonym) related to the course material. Ask them to find their classmate who has the matching card. It's a fun way to get them moving, bringing them out of their slump and putting their brains to work.

It doubles down as an icebreaker and review activity where students must recall what they've learned to complete the game.

17. Create a model

In this activity, ask your students to create a physical or digital model related to the subject matter. It's a hands-on activity mostly used in science, geography, or architecture, where you can create something tangible.

For example, biology students might create models of cell structures, while history students might build historical dioramas.

Creating a model helps students understand and internalize complex concepts by translating abstract ideas into physical objects. It's best done as group work to encourage collaborative learning.

18. Augmented reality labs

A 2004 study found that 65% of our population are visual learners. Limiting student learning to text-based media makes it harder to absorb what's being taught in the classroom.

And while games and models improve the learning process, newer technologies like augmented reality (AR) have taken it much further. You can see and virtually engage with the subject matter, drastically increasing student engagement and retention rates.

In the image below, you can see how two individuals use an AR set to look at marine life, allowing for a better understanding of the topic.

An image of two people looking at a video of a marine floor using augmented reality sets.

Virtual reality labs

19. Trivia competitions

Trivia competitions are a fun and competitive way to engage students through quizzes. You can use it to review material, test knowledge, or encourage team-building .

Divide students into different teams and ask them to answer the questions. You can call out the questions or use a trivia app to display them on your screen. Let students discuss and choose the answer on the screen.

An image of a trivia competition created using Poll Everywhere.

Trivia competition in Poll Everywhere

Use student engagement activities to provide better learning experiences

The traditional method of teaching is slowly becoming obsolete. While educators once only used methods like lecturing and take-home assignments to teach, students these days need something more to keep them engaged. One-way teaching sessions don’t help students learn, so it’s important to incorporate activities within the classroom to improve participation and knowledge retention.

As students are under more pressure, educators need to provide a better learning experience to help them succeed. And using simple tactics like engagement activities is an effective way to do that.

These classroom activities foster meaningful connections to the material through an interactive approach. Plus, they do so while developing soft skills like creative thinking, critical thinking, and collaboration. Try any of these learning activities and see how it transforms your classroom into an engaging learning space.

If you're looking for a student engagement tool to conduct these activities digitally, try out Poll Everywhere today.

15 Ways to Make Studying Less Stressful for Maximum Motivation and Great Results

No matter how academic you are, or how much you enjoy studying, the fact of the matter is that learning can be boring at times.

With lots of facts to be memorised and arguments to be absorbed, not all of which you will find interesting, there are times when studying can seem a chore and motivation can wane. It’s times like these that you need to have a few tried and tested study methods and motivational techniques to fall back on that will reinvigorate you and make the process of studying a little more enjoyable. This article gives you a few ideas to help you bring back the joy of learning and succeed even in your least favourite subjects.

1. Listen to music

Everyone’s different, and some people can’t concentrate with music on in the background. But if you’re trying to get to grips with a topic you just can’t seem to get interested in, having some music on in the background can really help. Experiment a bit to find the right kind of music to work to; many people find that they can’t concentrate on working when there are lyrics in the music, so some gentle orchestral, piano or jazz music may do the trick. They say that Mozart is particularly good for the brain cells; we recommend his clarinet concerto if you aren’t sure where to start!

2. Set your notes to music

Image shows a pair of skullcandy earbuds on a desk.

You could go a step further with the music and actually use it to help you learn. You’re probably good at remembering lyrics to songs, because the melody and rhymes help cement the words in your mind; you can use the same principle in your studies. If you’re struggling to remember dates, facts or figures, try setting them to music. It may feel a little cheesy, but picking a tune and substituting the lyrics is a great way to remember those facts that just won’t stick. Then when you’re in the exam room, you only have to recall the tune and the facts should come flooding back.

3. Try using interactive learning materials

In this day and age, you have an advantage over previous generations in that you have a wealth of study materials available to you on the internet. With plenty of online courses and other web resources, you’re sure to be able to find some fun interactive learning software for the subject you’re trying to tackle. Such software makes use of multimedia information to help you absorb information more easily, and may include audio, videos and quizzes in addition to straightforward text for you to read. Mixing up the format of your learning materials in this way is a sure-fire way to help you learn more easily, but it also makes the process more enjoyable by breaking up the monotony of studying from books.

4. Use flashcards

Image shows a woman's hands, flicking through flashcards.

Flashcards are a really useful revision resource, but you can use them all year round to make your studying more enjoyable – not just when it comes to exam time. Try condensing the topic into as few words as you can; it’s quite a challenge. Also, design them in such a way that they are visually memorable. Adding colourful drawings to each card to illustrate each topic means that when you’re struggling to remember something, perhaps in class, you can recall what you drew on the card. The chances are that the rest will come back to you when you remember the visual cue.

5. Create posters

Summarising concepts on posters gives you something different to do, and also allows you to be a bit creative with your designs, injecting some fun into your studying in the process. Let’s say you’re learning about photosynthesis. You could design a poster that illustrates how the process works, complete with colourful diagrams and drawings, text outlining the step-by-step process and labels highlighting what each part of the plant is called. When you’re finished, you could hang the poster in your room so that you’re exposed to it in your spare time as well, and you’ll gradually absorb the information without even realising it. It’s a much more fun way of learning difficult concepts, and it will help you get the facts clear in your head.

6. Make up some mnemonics

Image shows the Earth rising, seen from the Moon.

It may be hard to remember how to spell and say the word mnemonic, but the thing itself is in fact a memory aid. It refers to when you translate information into a form in which you can more easily remember it. For example, many people use the mnemonic “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” to remember the compass directions (“North, East, South, West”). You can use these to help you memorise troublesome facts that just won’t seem to stick in your head. For example, if you’re trying to remember the names of the kings and queens of England, make up a phrase with their initials. Taking monarchs of the last century as an example, we have Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II – giving us the letters V, E, G, E, G, E. You can then use these on their own, recalling “Vegege”, or you can make up a phrase with the words starting with these initials – for instance “VEGetables Eventually Get Eaten”.

7. Use diagrams to illustrate what you’re learning

We touched on this point earlier with posters and flashcards, but it’s an idea you can apply to every aspect of your learning, including note-taking and essay-writing. Creating drawings and diagrams to illustrate the concepts you’re learning or writing about is a fun way of learning, but it also helps convey points more easily, and in such a way that they will stick in your mind more readily. What’s more, using diagrams in essays helps make your work more interesting for teachers to read, scoring you more points by supporting the clarity of your communication.

8. Invest in some stationery you love using

Image shows a beautiful old-fashioned notebook with a beaded bookmark.

An easy way to make studying more fun is to invest in some stationery and general desk equipment that you love using. High-quality paper and pens that are a pleasure to write with, a set of colouring pencils, highlighters, a notepad with an attractive cover – all these will make you want to use them! Another trick on the stationery front is to purchase a nice ‘To Do’ list notepad so you can tick things off; nothing beats the satisfaction of ticking things off a list, and it will also allow you to stay on top of what you need to do and when.

9. Treat yourself

Rewarding yourself for your efforts is an important part of making studying more enjoyable, as well as motivating yourself. Keep some healthy snacks with you while you’re working, such as sliced fresh fruit, dried fruit or nuts. If you’re reading something particularly difficult, buy a packet of Skittles, Maltesers or similar, and place one at intervals down the page – you get to eat it when you’ve read up to that point. Thinking slightly longer term, book things to look forward to for your time off. That could be meeting up with a friend, a trip to the cinema to see a film you’re looking forward to, or anything else that will give you a way to relax once you’ve got a hard study session out of the way.

10. Read the book? Now watch the film…

Image shows Keira Knightly and Matthew Macfayden as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

When you’re studying a work of literature, seeing the film is absolutely no substitute for reading the book. However, when you’ve read the book and spent some time interpreting and analysing it, there’s nothing wrong with giving yourself a couple of easy hours to watch a film adaptation of it. Provided you take a critical approach to it, there’s nothing wrong with calling this session ‘studying’! Ask yourself how well you think the film has been cast, whether the film does justice to the book, what things have changed and what have remained true to the book, what you’d have done differently, and so on.

11. Read Harry Potter in another language

If you’re learning another language, you can make learning more fun by attempting to read your favourite book in the language you’re learning. We’re giving Harry Potter as an example here because it’s even available in Latin and Ancient Greek! Because you’re already familiar with the plot and characters, you’ll find it easier to get to grips with the language itself.

12. A change of scene

Image shows a young woman studying in a park.

Changing your environment can be a great way of regaining your enthusiasm for studying, and provided your change of scene doesn’t bring with it too many distractions, this is a simple means of making studying more enjoyable. This could mean studying in the library rather than at home, moving your desk to by the window so that you can enjoy the view each time you look up from your books, or even heading down to a local coffee shop and burying yourself in your studies with a steaming mug of coffee to keep you alert. On a summer’s day you could try studying in the garden or park, so that you get to enjoy the outdoors without neglecting your studies.

13. Study in small bursts on each topic

Don’t try to spend an entire day studying a single topic; you’ll soon get bored of it! Instead, map out a timetable allocating no more than an hour per topic, breaking bigger ones down if necessary. This means that you’ll have a varied day and be better able to retain interest and enthusiasm for individual subjects. Anything becomes dull if you spend too much time on it, so keep the fun element by stopping before you reach that point.

14. Study with a friend

Image shows a group of students studying by a river in Switzerland.

Studying with a friend is an almost guaranteed way to make studying more fun, and it’s enormously beneficial to those given to procrastination. It can be difficult to motivate oneself when studying alone, but with someone else there to spur you on (or for you to spur on!), everything seems much easier – particularly when you can help each other understand concepts you’re struggling with. Here are a few ideas for how you can make the most out of studying with a friend:

Compare notes on ideas you have and on what you thought of essay questions, set texts or other assignments.
Allocate different areas of a topic for each of you to study, and then each of you teaches the other about what you’ve been learning. Having to explain a concept to someone else forces you to learn it properly and think clearly.
Engage in some academic discussions and debates, with one of you playing the role of Devil’s Advocate while the other tries to argue a point.
Give each other little mini lectures , complete with presentations – this helps you learn the subjects as well as giving you valuable practice at presenting.
Set each other quizzes to test what you’ve learned.
You could even introduce an element of competition – see who can come up with the most ideas for an essay, who can get to the end of a chapter quickest, and so on.

15. Start a study group

Finally, you could go a step further with the ‘study buddy’ concept and start up a study group with a number of friends. This gives you the benefit of more ideas and opinions, and makes it easier to get an academic discussion going. To make it work, you could allocate a set time each week when you all meet – perhaps at a weekend – and you could arrange your meetings in a coffee shop so that it doesn’t feel quite so much like working (provided you can be disciplined enough to stick to conversations about what you’re meant to be studying!). Following these tips should help avoid boredom when you’re studying and keep your productivity levels high. Even the subjects you think are dull can be made interesting and enjoyable if you take the right approach, and maintaining this positive attitude is sure to do wonders for your grades!

Home > Blog > Tips for Online Students > How to Make Studying Fun and Less Stressful?

School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students , Tips for Students

How to Make Studying Fun and Less Stressful?

Updated: June 19, 2024

Published: December 11, 2019

How to Make Studying Fun to Keep You Motivated

Studying for a test or exam can be intense. You will experience study burnout if you don’t try to lighten up and relax during the process. Learning how to make studying fun is an important skill that all students can benefit from. Not only will it make your study times less of an ordeal, it will also help you maintain better mental health. As a result, you should be able to concentrate more and anticipate your test with a better attitude.

1. Play Mood-Boosting Study Music

Studying in dead quiet can be unnerving. Pretty soon you find yourself either paranoid and looking over your shoulder every two minutes, or you wake up with your nose squashed against your textbook. Play some tunes to keep up your spirits while you hit the books. Songs without lyrics are usually the best for studying. Choose a genre that relaxes and doesn’t annoy you. For some people, classical music helps to soothe and inspire. For others, playing video game music with a fun beat that goes on and on is what makes studying enjoyable.

Students in a study group with computers

2. Get a Study Buddy

Are you a social person? Then, don’t punish yourself by studying alone. Make studying a group effort. You can find classmates who are studying for the same exam and quiz each other, or you can enlist a friend or sibling to help you study. Choose someone who likes to make you laugh, but make sure the two of you can stay on a topic most of the time.

Here are two strategies to make studying with a friend more engaging:

Make a list of questions and answers for your study buddy to quiz you on. Reward each other with food when you get all of the correct.
Teach your friend the material. This helps you understand it a new way, and your friend learns something interesting in the process.

3. Feel Comfortable in Your Clothes

Many people overlook this basic tip on how to make studying fun. Wear clothes that you absolutely love. Check out this article about dopamine dressing . It shows how certain styles, colors, and textures change you on a psychological level. You can actually dress in a way that triggers happy and inspiring feelings, making it easier for you to stay focused and happy while studying.

4. Inspire Yourself with New Pens and Pencils

Getting something new is a great way to motivate yourself to do anything, including studying. You don’t want to spend an extravagant amount of money to help you study for an exam, but there are simple little things you can buy for yourself, like writing utensils. Ditch the boring #2 yellow pencils and opt for something more exciting, such as a classically-styled fountain pen, a collection of rainbow-colored marker pens, a quill feather pen, or a big box of sharpened colored pencils.

Student makes studying fun by color coding notes

5. Make Your Notes Look Amazing

Do you take notes as part of your study routine? Enjoy the process of writing notes by making it look spectacular and memorable. This can be accomplished a number of ways, including:

Use a beautiful style of calligraphy
Write headings or important facts in graffiti-style block letters
Embellish your notes with visuals and drawings
Create a comic strip of yourself studying for the test
Color code your notes

6. Turn Study Time into a Fun Challenge

Challenges are a great way to motivate yourself to study more. Challenge yourself to learn all the facts on one page, and then reward yourself with a study break, a snack, or something else that you love. If your studying consists of reading books over a certain period of time, challenge yourself to complete a set amount of pages in a set amount of time. When you reach your goal, you win!

Learn more ways to beat stress during exams .

7. Break Up Your Study Time with Other Fun Activities

If you have a lot to accomplish over the weekend, how do you make studying fun instead of tiresome? Keep study burnout from occurring by breaking up your study time into manageable time periods. For example, spend half an hour studying, and then go for a walk around the block. Return to studying for another 45 minutes, and then make yourself a healthy lunch. Study for an hour, and then watch a new episode of your favorite show. The key is to always return to your studies. This requires a bit of discipline, but it does make long periods of studying easier to handle.

8. Try a Study App

Study apps are created to help you enjoy studying. Find one that makes you smile or keeps you motivated. Here are a few examples:

Evernote is great for keeping you organized.
Quizlet is widely used and has the potential to make studying easier and more enjoyable.
Think in new ways with Xmind .
Dictate your notes using Dragon .
Help keep track of all your tests and exams with the free Exam Countdown app.

9. Find a YouTube Video that Helps You Understand Challenging Information

Learning styles differ from person to person. Some people study well with pen and paper, others learn better from listening. Utilize the technology that is available to you. There are YouTube videos for practically anything, so if you need a better understanding of Java for your computer science course or you are writing a paper about learning theories for your Master of Education degree , somebody has probably made a video to help you out.

10. Go Old School with Homemade Flashcards

Flashcards are an old-fashioned solution how to make studying interesting. For generations, students have benefited from copying down notes and facts on notecards and using them to quiz themselves. For added interest and fun, choose brightly colored notecards or write with colored markers on plain cards. The process of making the flashcards and the games you can make once they are finished help you remember your material in a fun way.

Now that you know how to make studying fun, check out this article about finding a fun and rewarding career .

If you are looking for an accredited online program to advance your career path, choose University of the People. We offer a number of online degree programs that give you greater flexibility as you learn and cost a lot less than a traditional university. You can reach your educational goals with University of the People.

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At UoPeople, our blog writers are thinkers, researchers, and experts dedicated to curating articles relevant to our mission: making higher education accessible to everyone. Read More

Daniel Wong

How to Make Studying Fun: 12 Tips to Enjoy Your Study Sessions

Updated on August 30, 2023 By Daniel Wong 16 Comments

If you feel unmotivated, bored, or anxious when it comes to studying, you’re not alone.

Studying does have its benefits. It helps you to get good grades , learn new things, and build much-needed life skills for teens and young adults.

And while balance is extremely important, studying will always be a core part of student life.

The good news is that any student can learn to make studying productive and fun.

Yes, you read that right. Studying can be fun! In fact, you can learn how to get into a flow state and make time fly as you work on your assignments.

Let’s explore ways to make studying more enjoyable.

(If you sometimes procrastinate or lack focus, make sure you download the quick action guide below.)

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Tip #1: Stop saying “I have to study”

At times, we may not be attentive enough to the words we say to ourselves. But these words can shape how we view ourselves and the situations in our lives.

The next time you have an upcoming exam, observe how you speak to yourself about it.

You might say something like, “I have to study for the exam.” Once you say this, your brain is wired to think about studying as a chore you have to do – rather than something you choose to do.

What should you say instead?

Replace “have to” with either “choose to” or “get to.”

When you say “I choose to study for the exam,” it’s a reminder that nobody is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to study. It’s a decision that you get to make.

And when you say “I get to study for the exam,” you’re reminding yourself that there are millions of children and teenagers around the world who want to go to school, but who don’t have the opportunity to.

Tip #2: Remind yourself that grades aren’t what matter most

As a student, it’s easy to become too focused on your grades.

That’s understandable. There’s satisfaction you derive from seeing your test scores go up or from getting compliments from your teachers and parents.

Getting good grades is a positive goal and it’s something worth working toward. But it isn’t the only important part of your student life.

Becoming fixated on grades will only lead to unnecessary stress. This will hurt your academic performance too.

It’s the process of learning from your mistakes and improving that matters in the long run.

Tip #3: Study in shorter blocks

Pushing yourself to study for long stretches at a go takes the joy out of learning.

A practical study tip is to break down your study sessions into shorter blocks.

You can implement a method called the Pomodoro technique . This technique is a simple yet effective tool for focused work.

Here’s how you can apply it during your study sessions:

Set a specific task for your study session.
Set a timer for 25 minutes.
Work on the task until the timer rings.
Take a five-minute break. (Set a timer for the break too.)
Repeat the steps listed above.
Take a longer break of 15-30 minutes every four rounds.

Of course, you can experiment with the exact length of each study session to find what works best for you. An app like the Productivity Challenge Timer can also help you in this process.

Tip #4: Write down the tasks and assignments you’ve completed

We’ve all heard of a to-do list, but here’s another type of list you should keep: a “done” list.

Keep a record of the tasks and assignments you’ve completed. You can organize these tasks based on their completion date.

But how does a “done” list help? It reminds you to give yourself a pat on the back for what you’ve accomplished.

Keeping a “done” list will make you feel more motivated.

It will also allow you to keep track of the tasks you’ve finished – just in case you can’t remember what’s been completed and what’s still pending.

Tip #5: Cultivate a sense of curiosity

Yes, a significant part of studying involves reading the materials given to you and memorizing important bits of information.

But this gets boring pretty fast, doesn’t it?

So try this instead…

Ask yourself questions throughout the learning process. It’s an effective way to pick up new concepts.

This study found that participants who asked themselves questions and answered them during the learning process learned the material better.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself while studying:

How is this new concept related to what I already know?
How can this information be applied in the real world?
What are some real-life examples of this theory in action?
How was this concept or theory discovered?

If you run into a question you can’t answer, a quick online search is likely to yield an answer.

Tip #6: Get creative with your notes

You can use digital note-taking apps to make your notes more enjoyable to read. For instance, you can add colors, diagrams, icons, and creative fonts to a digital canvas.

If you prefer taking notes with pen and paper, try using colorful highlighters or markers to draw your attention to the key points.

This study suggests that color coding can improve your attention and memory when studying. It can also enhance how your brain processes and organizes information.

Mindmaps are another way to bring your notes to life.

Mindmaps are diagrams that represent concepts and ideas. Mindmaps demonstrate how these concepts and ideas are linked to a central topic and each other.

Mindmaps can encourage intuitive learning by structuring the information clearly.

Tip #7: Invest in stationery you love

You might choose to invest in stationery like:

Special highlighters
Uniquely-shaped paperclips
Colorful sticky notes

You can also make note-taking more exciting by using cool notebooks and pens that are nice to write with.

Tip #8: Find a motivated study group

One way to stay on track academically is to study with friends who share the same goals as you. These study sessions can be done online or in person.

Study groups work because accountability can play a huge role in enabling you to form the right study habits .

Start by deciding when you’ll study together on a weekly basis. Then, you can keep each other accountable by encouraging everyone to show up for each study session.

Group study sessions help to break the monotony of studying. Through these sessions, you’ll learn from your friends and you’ll get to compare notes too.

Tip #9: Listen to music (but be wise about your music choices)

But you need to be cautious when curating your study playlist.

Not all kinds of music are helpful. Certain types of music can be distracting.

Loud and fast music (especially songs with lyrics) can reduce focus. In contrast, soft and slow background music without lyrics can improve focus.

Experiment with different playlists to find what works best for you.

Tip #10: Integrate interactive learning materials into your study plan

Sticking to just one learning format can become tiresome and boring. That’s why it’s a good idea to mix things up!

So, why not explore different formats and modes of learning?

If you have access to the internet, there are thousands of free resources at your fingertips.

These resources might come in the form of:

Video lessons
Interactive lectures
Printable worksheets
Learning apps and games
Downloadable resource kits
Online quizzes
Online and printable flashcards
Digital guides

Use at least a couple of these types of learning materials to make your study sessions more interesting.

Tip #11: Use apps that make it fun to focus

Here are a few apps I recommend:

Study Bunny : This app comes with a study tracker and focus timer. You’ll get a virtual study buddy bunny that you can customize with the coins you earn.
Habitica : This app uses in-game rewards to help you build good habits and stay consistent.
Forest : In this app, each time you start a focused study session, you plant a virtual tree that keeps growing as long as you stay on task. You can use the coins you earn to make a donation to plant a real tree.

Tip #12: Make your own flashcards

Flashcards incorporate both words and pictures to help you actively recall information.

How do flashcards work?

One side of the flashcard has a question, and the flip side has the answer. After you read the question, say your answer out loud before flipping over the flashcard to see if you got it right.

For example, one side of the flashcard could say, “What type of organisms are bacteria?”

The flip side could say, “Prokaryotes.”

Using flashcards is a better approach than just passively reading the textbook or notes.

You can make your own flashcards by using index cards or regular paper cut into smaller pieces.

Alternatively, you can use an app like Quizlet or Anki . These apps come with pre-made and customizable digital flashcards that cover a wide range of subjects.

Many students find studying to be boring, stressful, and tedious.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Studying can be fun. It all depends on the mindset you have and how you approach each study session.

Take a couple of the tips in this article and apply them in the coming week. I’m sure you’ll start to enjoy the learning process more!

(Don’t forget to download your quick action guide below.)

March 6, 2023 at 5:14 pm

This was or is very helpful.. It is very relatable as a teenager and as a student who wants good grade.. Thanks for this guide ☺☺

March 6, 2023 at 5:55 pm

You’re welcome 🙂

March 7, 2023 at 3:12 am

Thank you very much for helping students like myself Wong.

March 7, 2023 at 7:51 am

You’re welcome!

March 7, 2023 at 7:47 am

Very informative and inspirational guide, thank you for the help, I’m sure my grades will be better now

March 7, 2023 at 7:52 am

Glad that you liked it!

March 7, 2023 at 5:38 pm

Thank you, Daniel. Very good tips here. Thanks for including the apps too.

March 7, 2023 at 6:10 pm

You’re very welcome.

March 9, 2023 at 10:13 pm

How I wish in my younger years when I was a student, I should have done this!

Thank you Daniel for sharing this tips. This is very helpful.

March 10, 2023 at 8:03 am

Glad you found the tips useful!

March 13, 2023 at 7:13 am

I’m glad I found this article as I’m about to study today, I think this will be really helpful. It’s motivating me and making me excited about studying! Thanks Daniel 🙂

March 13, 2023 at 7:44 am

I definitely hope the tips are helpful for you 🙂

March 20, 2023 at 3:02 am

Thank you Daniel! Very helpful tips!!

March 20, 2023 at 7:39 am

March 21, 2023 at 7:04 am

As always, this one of your various inspiring articles has not missed the mark. Thanks a lot for this Mr. Wong. Very helpful tips am going to try my best to habitualize. Have my Senior School Certificate Examinations coming up in few weeks and I am putting effort to make the best. Your tips will go a long way now in helping me achieve that.

Keep going Mr. Daniel !! 🔥💯🙌

March 21, 2023 at 8:15 am

Thank you and wishing you all the best for your exams!

9 Ways to Finish Homework in College Even When You Don't Feel Like It

Student Success

Do you put the “pro” in procrastinate?

In truth, we’ve all experienced how difficult it feels just to start. So we tend to ignore it and focus on something more fun instead. But then, before we realize, a project that at first seemed manageable now appears next to impossible to complete.

So we go into a deadline-induced panic.

Even if you think you work well under stress and pressure in college, you probably still feel the overwhelming sense of anxiety that accompanies procrastination, whether or not you meet that looming deadline.

But if you want to break your procrastination habit, you can. It’s fixable. All you need is a solid support system and a few clever productivity tactics to keep your self-discipline and focus in check.

So instead of falling into the frantic last-minute cycle again , use this list of tools and strategies to push ahead and finish what needs to be done.

1. Play That Music

Music boosts your energy and keeps you alert. So if you are distracted by the slightest of sounds in a usually quiet atmosphere, music can drown out any spontaneous interruptions. It also has a powerful effect on your mood and recall. When you select the right song to play while studying, writing a paper or posting in the discussion board, the tune can trigger your memory.

2. Find a Study Buddy

If you find it difficult to sit down and create a study guide for your next exam, team up with a few classmates to draft a master study guide. Assign each person a section to work on. Perhaps one of your teammates has a better understanding of the material in a specific section and can help you better grasp the concepts. Then, combine everyone’s work for a complete and comprehensive guide.

3. Grab Your Phone

Use your smartphone to your advantage. Make use of those awkward segments of time throughout the day when you may have a 10-minute opening. Waiting for your kid to finish soccer practice? Have a couple minutes before your meeting starts? Study anytime by loading your notes onto your phone or turning them into digital, on-the-go flashcards.

4. Make It Fun

It’s ok to face it - we avoid tasks because they seem boring. The easiest way to fix this is to make those tasks fun. For example, if you are writing a paper, invite a friend who might have their own work to do to join you at a coffee shop. Or recruit your kids to quiz you on your study material. Your kids will love helping (and they’ll learn something too!).

5. Take Advantage of Web Apps

Writing apps like Hemingway and Grammarly can ease the process of writing papers by helping you write more clearly. Think of these apps as your own personal writing coach. As you write, the app identifies hard to read sentences, as well as awkward phrasing, and promotes better word choices.

6. Set an Alarm

Not just any alarm. One programmed to tell you what you need to do and how it will impact your day. Think, “start working on your paper now and you’ll be able to go to a movie.” If you ignore that one, then set another saying, “if you start your paper now, you can watch an hourlong drama,” and so on. This type of self-reward system can help you better manage your time and still fulfill your wants later on.

7. Recruit a Supervisor

Being accountable to someone is often the drive we need to kick us into gear. Use a similar tactic to ensure your schoolwork is done on time. Ask someone to check on your progress periodically to assure you’re staying on task. This someone can be your spouse, a friend or even your children. Choose wisely, though. You want someone who is serious about helping and won’t try to bother you while you are working. Your teenaged son or daughter will probably be very good at checking up on you and keeping you on task. Maybe even too good.

8. Do Your Least Favorite Work First

When you do your least favorite work first, you will increase your confidence and decrease your stress levels. And, naturally, avoid procrastination later on. Finishing the largest item on your to-do list will give you the productivity boost you need to do other assignments you may have pushed aside.

9. Change Your Perspective

Are things just not right in your usual study space ? Or do you just not like it anymore? Maybe it’s too loud, too quiet, too dark or just too hot. Consider making a change. Try working in your local coffee shop, in a community library or a nearby park. The change in scenery and perspective will impact your productivity for the better.

Written by Thomas Edison State University

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13 Fun Homework Ideas: The Best Ways To Make Homework Fun For Kids Quickly & Easily

Ellie Williams

Figuring out how to make homework fun can be a tricky task for parents.

Does it feel like you’re constantly nagging your kids to do their homework? If your answer is yes then worry not as we’ve all been there! It’s natural for parents to want their children to progress and do well in school, but after an entire day of paper, pencils, and books many youngsters will resist getting on with their homework – and that’s putting it mildly!

Top Tips To Make Homework Fun:

Work together
Use rewards and incentives
Sort them a snack
Make it visual
Try different learning apps
Set up a homework play date
Turn it into a game
Let them play teacher
Use a timer
Create a special homework space
Remember to be positive
Get help if you need i t

Thankfully, there are ways of making homework less boring and that little bit more fun for your child. Whether they need to practice spellings, learn their times tables or revise for an important exam, our top fun homework ideas will help you to magically take the ‘work’ out of homework.

13 Fun Homework Ideas: The Best Ways To Make Homework Fun For Kids Quickly & Easily

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1. Work together

Adults often work best in the company of others, and the same can be said of kids, so why not sit with your child while they’re studying and get on with some of your own work or life admin?

Whether you’re returning emails, doing your online banking or organising the next primary school PTA fundraiser, creating a shared workspace and modelling focused work is a great way to spend quality time together while they complete their homework. Win-win!

Quick win : Whilst your child is tackling their fractions homework, you could sit down with them and take a look through your finances or even test yourself on the work that your child will be doing in their SATs .

2. Use rewards and incentives

Rewards and incentives are great when it comes to getting your children to follow your household rules and routines, and homework is no different. Things like stickers or the promise of time on their iPad or games console for slightly older children can all work wonders in getting them to do their homework without a battle.

Quick win: For every few questions they answer they could get a minute of screen time!

3. Sort them a snack

Let’s face it: A hungry child is an unfocused, unmotivated and unhappy child.

Most children come out of school ravenous, so let them nibble on a nutritious after-school snack while they get on with homework; things like popcorn, apple slices, grapes, flapjacks, or crackers and cheese are all great snack options.

If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, Netmums has a list of healthy after-school snack ideas and recipes to try.

Quick win: One of the best brain foods for kids is a nice and crispy apple! So when your child is craving something sweet just cut up an apple and let them munch away.

4. Make it visual

Help to eliminate the late night ‘Oh, I forgot to do that’, and create a weekly homework chart so your child can see what they have to do each day and check off each homework ‘To Do’ as it’s been completed.

Again, Pinterest has some great free printables to help keep kids organised. Get them involved by letting them colour it, or decorate it with their favourite stickers, and pin it up somewhere at their height, where they will see it easily every day as a reminder. Some exciting new stationery and colourful pens might help too.

Quick win: An easy way to make homework fun is to grab a piece of paper and get your child to draw out and decorate a ‘homework chart’ consisting of 5 days. Stick it on the fridge and add a sticker to each day after they’ve done their homework, when they’ve collected 5 stickers they get a treat!

5. Try different learning apps

If your child prefers to be online, there are some great online apps around that children will have fun using, yet encourage learning too. Here are our favourite free maths websites for example. Speak to your child’s teacher too and see which apps the children use in school so you can support what they’re doing at home.

Quick win: One of our favourite apps that makes homework fun is Times Tables Rockstars!

6. Set up a homework play date

Holding a homework playdate where your child can invite one of their best school buddies over to do homework together can be a great way for them to learn and make sure the work gets done, especially slightly older primary children.

Plus, it’s likely that their parents will be delighted!

Younger children may need a bit more support and guidance but can still gain a lot from the experience of learning together with a friend – think of this as a mini-educational play date for them – with a special tea afterwards of course!

Quick win: Let your child and their friend play for a while, and then get them to work through their homework with the incentive of a yummy ‘tea party’ when they’ve completed all of their homework.

7. Go outside

If the weather allows, create a comfortable outside study space and allow your child to do their homework outdoors.

The fresh air can help kids with their concentration if they’ve been stuck in a classroom all day, and studies also show that being outside, closer to nature, can increase productivity. The reward of a quick game of Frisbee or a kick-around of a football between tasks will help them stay motivated too.

Quick win: Check out this fun outdoor maths activity for some inspiration of ways you can make homework fun.

8. Turn it into a game

Who said home learning had to be boring? If children enjoy what they’re learning, they’re more likely to remember what they’re being taught, so turn their learning into a fun game. Using sweets like Smarties to help with maths and number work can turn the experience from a chore into a treat. If they get the right answer, they get to eat some!

Another trick that you can use when your child is learning spellings is to write them in foam or in magnetic letters. It sounds simple, but we can guarantee that it will make homework a lot more fun for your child.

These maths games for kids and times tables games are a great place to start.

Quick win: If you’re looking for some fun homework ideas then check out this simple multiplication activity you can do at home, it’ll even get in one of your child’s five a day!

9. Let them play teacher

Make another fun homework game by creating your own mini-classroom and letting your child step into the role of teacher.

Have your child explain a concept to you as a teacher, as you, or their sibling, plays the role of the student. This game works particularly well with subjects that require theory, like Science for example, as it will improve their understanding of the concept and build logic and reasoning skills.

Quick win: Make homework fun by getting your child to choose their favourite teddys and toys and setting them up in their own mini classroom. Start off with registration, ‘mummy’ ‘present’, ‘mr teddy’ ‘here’ etc. You’ll soon notice that your child is growing in confidence regardless of the topic as children love playing teacher!

10. Use a timer

Some children may have difficulty working for prolonged periods of time without a break, so using a timer can be great for getting them to complete homework without the whining. For example, if your child is given 20 maths problems for homework, you can say “Complete the first 10 questions then we’ll take a 5-minute break, then complete the next 10 questions”.

Many children will need a mental break and will work more effectively when given the opportunity to take one. At the end of the task, they get to pick an activity of their choice. If your child gets easily distracted, a timer game can work well to keep them focused on the task in hand.

Quick win: Put the timer on your phone so that your child can see the countdown whilst they’re working.

11. Create a special homework space

A special study space can make homework more fun and help motivate your child to get it done! Choose a space in your house that’s least likely to distract your child, and create a simple, organised, and kid-friendly homework HQ.

You could hang up some of their artwork above the desk, and have all their school essentials nearby so everything is close to hand.

Quick win: Make sure that they aren’t surrounded by things that will distract them. Televisions and iPads are a no go at homework time!

12. Remember to be positive

Remember to always be upbeat and positive about school and the importance of their homework. Give your child lots of praise and encouragement about how well they’re doing to help them stay motivated and on track.

Quick win: After every homework session spend five minutes talking through what your child has accomplished. If you’re running out of activities to do, have a look at our list of home learning packs – all free to download.

13. Get help if you need it

Homework can be frustrating if your child doesn’t understand the material or gets bored easily. If your child is struggling, get them some expert help!

A Third Space Learning online tutoring lesson exploring the value of digits in numbers up to 10,000,000.

Quick win: Third Space Learning has plenty of advice on learning maths for kids and parents but if you need more support, our primary school maths tutors are easy to organise and very affordable.

DO YOU HAVE STUDENTS WHO NEED MORE SUPPORT IN MATHS?

Every week Third Space Learning’s maths specialist tutors support thousands of students across hundreds of schools with weekly one to one tuition designed to plug gaps and boost progress.

Since 2013 these personalised one to one lessons have helped over 150,000 primary and secondary students become more confident, able mathematicians.

Learn how pupils make accelerated progress or request a personalised quote for your school to speak to us about your school’s needs and how we can help.

Home Learning Ideas, Activities and Guides For Primary and Secondary School Teachers

Free Home Learning Packs For Primary Maths KS1 & KS2

Back To School Tips For Parents: 10 Ways To Help Your Child Get Ready And Excited For Primary School!

How To Prevent The Summer Slide: 10 Ways Parents Can Ensure Their Child Is Prepared For The New School Year

FREE Ultimate Maths Vocabulary List [KS1 & KS2]

An A-Z of key maths concepts to help you and your pupils get started creating your own dictionary of terms.

Use as a prompt to get pupils started with new concepts, or hand it out in full and encourage use throughout the year.

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Creating and Adapting Assignments for Online Courses

Woman with dark hair and glasses working on laptop

Online teaching requires a deliberate shift in how we communicate, deliver information, and offer feedback to our students. How do you effectively design and modify your assignments to accommodate this shift? The ways you introduce students to new assignments, keep them on track, identify and remedy confusion, and provide feedback after an assignment is due must be altered to fit the online setting. Intentional planning can help you ensure assignments are optimally designed for an online course and expectations are clearly communicated to students.

When teaching online, it can be tempting to focus on the differences from in-person instruction in terms of adjustments, or what you need to make up for. However, there are many affordances of online assignments that can deepen learning and student engagement. Students gain new channels of interaction, flexibility in when and where they access assignments, more immediate feedback, and a student-centered experience (Gayten and McEwen, 2007; Ragupathi, 2020; Robles and Braathen, 2002). Meanwhile, ample research has uncovered that online assignments benefit instructors through automatic grading, better measurement of learning, greater student involvement, and the storing and reuse of assignments.

In Practice

While the purpose and planning of online assignments remain the same as their in-person counterparts, certain adjustments can make them more effective. The strategies outlined below will help you design online assignments that support student success while leveraging the benefits of the online environment.

Align assignments to learning outcomes.

All assignments work best when they align with your learning outcomes. Each online assignment should advance students' achievement of one or more of your specific outcomes. You may be familiar with Bloom's Taxonomy, a well-known framework that organizes and classifies learning objectives based on the actions students take to demonstrate their learning. Online assignments have the added advantage of flexing students' digital skills, and Bloom's has been revamped for the digital age to incorporate technology-based tasks into its categories. For example, students might search for definitions online as they learn and remember course materials, tweet their understanding of a concept, mind map an analysis, or create a podcast.

See a complete description of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy for further ideas.

Provide authentic assessments.

Authentic assessments call for relevant, purposeful actions that mimic the real-life tasks students may encounter in their lives and careers beyond the university. They represent a shift away from infrequent high-stakes assessments that tend to evaluate the acquisition of knowledge over application and understanding. Authentic assessments allow students to see the connection between what they're learning and how that learning is used and contextualized outside the virtual walls of the learning management system, thereby increasing their motivation and engagement.

There are many ways to incorporate authenticity into an assignment, but three main strategies are to use authentic audiences, content, and formats . A student might, for example, compose a business plan for an audience of potential investors, create a patient care plan that translates medical jargon into lay language, or propose a safe storage process for a museum collection.

Authentic assessments in online courses can easily incorporate the internet or digital tools as part of an authentic format. Blogs, podcasts, social media posts, and multimedia artifacts such as infographics and videos represent authentic formats that leverage the online context.

Learn more about authentic assessments in Designing Assessments of Student Learning .

Design for inclusivity and accessibility.

Adopting universal design principles at the outset of course creation will ensure your material is accessible to all students. As you plan your assignments, it's important to keep in mind barriers to access in terms of tools, technology, and cost. Consider which tools achieve your learning outcomes with the fewest barriers.

Offering a variety of assignment formats is one way to ensure students can demonstrate learning in a manner that works best for them. You can provide options within an individual assignment, such as allowing students to submit either written text or an audio recording or to choose from several technologies or platforms when completing a project.

Be mindful of how you frame and describe an assignment to ensure it doesn't disregard populations through exclusionary language or use culturally specific references that some students may not understand. Inclusive language for all genders and racial or ethnic backgrounds can foster a sense of belonging that fully invests students in the learning community.

Learn more about Universal Design of Learning and Shaping a Positive Learning Environment .

Design to promote academic integrity online.

Much like incorporating universal design principles at the outset of course creation, you can take a proactive approach to academic integrity online. Design assignments that limit the possibilities for students to use the work of others or receive prohibited outside assistance.

Provide authentic assessments that are more difficult to plagiarize because they incorporate recent events or unique contexts and formats.

Scaffold assignments so that students can work their way up to a final product by submitting smaller portions and receiving feedback along the way.

Lower the stakes by providing more frequent formative assessments in place of high-stakes, high-stress assessments.

In addition to proactively creating assignments that deter cheating, there are several university-supported tools at your disposal to help identify and prevent cheating.

Learn more about these tools in Strategies and Tools for Academic Integrity in Online Environments .

Communicate detailed instructions and clarify expectations.

When teaching in-person, you likely dedicate class time to introducing and explaining an assignment; students can ask questions or linger after class for further clarification. In an online class, especially in asynchronous online classes, you must anticipate where students' questions might arise and account for them in the assignment instructions.

The Carmen course template addresses some of students' common questions when completing an assignment. The template offers places to explain the assignment's purpose, list out steps students should take when completing it, provide helpful resources, and detail academic integrity considerations.

Providing a rubric will clarify for students how you will evaluate their work, as well as make your grading more efficient. Sharing examples of previous student work (both good and bad) can further help students see how everything should come together in their completed products.

Technology Tip

Enter all  assignments and due dates  in your Carmen course to increase transparency. When assignments are entered in Carmen, they also populate to Calendar, Syllabus, and Grades areas so students can easily track their upcoming work. Carmen also allows you to  develop rubrics  for every assignment in your course. 

Promote interaction and collaboration.

Frequent student-student interaction in any course, but particularly in online courses, is integral to developing a healthy learning community that engages students with course material and contributes to academic achievement. Online education has the inherent benefit of offering multiple channels of interaction through which this can be accomplished.

Carmen Discussions are a versatile platform for students to converse about and analyze course materials, connect socially, review each other's work, and communicate asynchronously during group projects.

Peer review can be enabled in Carmen Assignments and Discussions . Rubrics can be attached to an assignment or a discussion that has peer review enabled, and students can use these rubrics as explicit criteria for their evaluation. Alternatively, peer review can occur within the comments of a discussion board if all students will benefit from seeing each other's responses.

Group projects can be carried out asynchronously through Carmen Discussions or Groups , or synchronously through Carmen's Chat function or CarmenZoom . Students (and instructors) may have apprehensions about group projects, but well-designed group work can help students learn from each other and draw on their peers’ strengths. Be explicit about your expectations for student interaction and offer ample support resources to ensure success on group assignments.

Learn more about Student Interaction Online .

Choose technology wisely.

The internet is a vast and wondrous place, full of technology and tools that do amazing things. These tools can give students greater flexibility in approaching an assignment or deepen their learning through interactive elements. That said, it's important to be selective when integrating external tools into your online course.

Look first to your learning outcomes and, if you are considering an external tool, determine whether the technology will help students achieve these learning outcomes. Unless one of your outcomes is for students to master new technology, the cognitive effort of using an unfamiliar tool may distract from your learning outcomes.

Carmen should ultimately be the foundation of your course where you centralize all materials and assignments. Thoughtfully selected external tools can be useful in certain circumstances.

Explore supported tools

There are many  university-supported tools  and resources already available to Ohio State users. Before looking to external tools, you should explore the available options to see if you can accomplish your instructional goals with supported systems, including the eLearning toolset , approved CarmenCanvas integrations , and the Microsoft365 suite .

If a tool is not university-supported, keep in mind the security and accessibility implications, the learning curve required to use the tool, and the need for additional support resources. If you choose to use a new tool, provide links to relevant help guides on the assignment page or post a video tutorial. Include explicit instructions on how students can get technical support should they encounter technical difficulties with the tool.

Adjustments to your assignment design can guide students toward academic success while leveraging the benefits of the online environment.

Effective assignments in online courses are:

Aligned to course learning outcomes

Authentic and reflect real-life tasks

Accessible and inclusive for all learners

Designed to encourage academic integrity

Transparent with clearly communicated expectations

Designed to promote student interaction and collaboration

Supported with intentional technology tools

Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (e-book)
Making Your Course Accessible for All Learners (workshop reccording)
Writing Multiple Choice Questions that Demand Critical Thinking (article)

Learning Opportunities

Conrad, D., & Openo, J. (2018). Assessment strategies for online learning: Engagement and authenticity . AU Press. Retrieved from https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b8475002~S7

Gaytan, J., & McEwen, B. C. (2007). Effective online instructional and assessment strategies. American Journal of Distance Education , 21 (3), 117–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923640701341653

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ragupathi, K. (2020). Designing Effective Online Assessments Resource Guide . National University of Singapore. Retrieved from https://www.nus.edu.sg/cdtl/docs/default-source/professional-development-docs/resources/designing-online-assessments.pdf

Robles, M., & Braathen, S. (2002). Online assessment techniques.  Delta Pi Epsilon Journal ,  44 (1), 39–49. https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft&AN=507795215&site=eds-live&scope=site

Swan, K., Shen, J., & Hiltz, S. R. (2006). Assessment and collaboration in online learning.  Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks ,  10 (1), 45.

TILT Higher Ed. (n.d.). TILT Examples and Resources . Retrieved from  https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources

Tallent-Runnels, M. K., Thomas, J. A., Lan, W. Y., Cooper, S., Ahern, T. C., Shaw, S. M., & Liu, X. (2006). Teaching Courses Online: A Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research , 76 (1), 93–135. https://www-jstor-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/stable/3700584

Walvoord, B. & Anderson, V.J. (2010).  Effective Grading : A Tool for Learning and Assessment in College: Vol. 2nd ed . Jossey-Bass. https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b8585181~S7

13 Ways To Make History Class Engaging For Students

Learn a variety of strategies on how to make history class engaging for students. Check out in this blog post.

History class is much more than reading out of a textbook. Use these 10 tips to help make history class engaging and relevant to your students.

This blog post contains affiliate links that are of no cost to the reader. If you make a purchase through the provided links this blog will receive a small commission to help with the financial costs of maintaining the site.

13 Strategies To Make History Class Engaging

I hope you can use some of these 13 tips to help make history class engaging. As a history teacher, it is important to contact local historical sites, museums, organizations, and libraries to see how they can help enrich your program.

Try these lesson ideas to make history class fun.

Tip #1 Use QR Codes

This quick technology can be accessed with personal or school portable technology (phones, iPads, tablets). The QR code embeds information (text, URL, etc) into the code image. Students scan the code with a QR Code reader app and they unlock the information.

I use this in my classroom for introducing vocabulary words in a new unit or for students to access information in a different format. I try to make QR Code activities into scavenger hunts where they must locate the code before accessing information.

Tip #2 Incorporate Movement into Lessons

I love using the cooperative learning strategy called Four Corners. Around the classroom in each corner hang up four different answer cards such as Agree, Disagree, Undecided, and Need More Info (cards can be changed to align better with your lesson). Then ask the class a rich thinking question. Students move to the answer card area that best aligns with their opinion.

In this new opinion group, students discuss their ideas. Ensure that they know they will be held accountable for these discussions either through written or oral means. When first introducing this strategy, it is a great idea to have a Need More Information section where the teacher can stand and provide support.

For more tips on adding movement to lessons, read this article: 11 Fun Ways to Get Students Moving in the Classroom .

Tip #3 Add Drama

Activities such as Monologues, Wax Museum and Hot Seat make historical figures come to life in your classroom.

Tip #4 Use Collaborative Discussion Strategies

Students are not always comfortable discussing in History classes due to their lack of subject area background knowledge. When we have class discussions I try to build up their knowledge and confidence by using strategies such as Think Pair Share or Four Corners Placemats.

Tip #5 Bring In Primary Sources

Where possible bring in primary sources. Photos from the time period and archival documents can make history seem more authentic to students. Lots of internet sites (government archives) have access to these excellent pieces of history. A quick Google search will contain lots of ideas. Your local library, historical societies, and museums are also great places to look. Also, the New York Public Library has digitized a lot of pieces that could work in your classroom. You can also find great primary sources at Library and Archives Canada .

Tip #6 Picture Books

Do not discount the value of picture books in the middle or high school history classroom. Two of my favourite picture books for my Canadian history classes are The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Canadian Railroad Trilogy . The vivid images and storylines bring history alive.

Picture books can also be used to provide background knowledge prior to starting a unit. In English classes, I often use the book Teammates by Peter Golenbock as a mentor text, which discusses Jackie Robinson’s treatment as the first African American Major League Baseball player.

Picture books are fantastic literacy resources to help students learn about a variety of topics and reinforce literacy skills. I have used these picture books to help teach students about Residential Schools. Please purchase these books from Indigenous-owned bookstores.

When We Were Alone by David Robertson
Stolen Words by Melanie Florence
Not My Girl by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
When I Was Eight by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
Phyllis’s Orange Shirt by Phyllis Webstad
I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer
Shi-shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell
Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola I. Campbell

Tip #7 Browsing Bins

To help ignite and maintain a spark for historical knowledge, create a browsing bin of books related to curriculum topics. Ask your school librarian or media specialist if you can borrow books from the school library that relate to your current unit of study.

Keep these books in a special bin and in a highly visible area to encourage students to look through the materials and possibly check them out at the library. If your school does not have a library, visit your local library or contact any local historical associations to see what materials they can lend your classroom.

Tip #8 Historical Fiction

History classrooms are also literacy classrooms. Students engage each day with written text and make connections and inferences about the people they are studying. Keeping a good variety of historical fiction related to your topics of study can help students extend their classroom learning.

Some favourite books among my students are anything related to major wars or conflicts. The Dear Canada and Dear America series from Scholastic are great places to start for historical fiction. Here are some historical fiction book lists.

Middle School Historical Fiction Books
World War Two Themed Novels For Middle School Students
World War Two Themed Novels For High School Students

Tip #9 Assignment Choice

It is also important that your assignments have different choice options. Students feel more empowered about their learning if given the chance to produce works of their choosing. Providing choices about content and product is a great place to start.

My first major assignment in my Grade 8 History class is having students create a persuasive piece to encourage the British Colonies to join Confederation. Depending on the school year, students have been offered choices in the final product: pamphlet, website, slideshow, etc.

They can also produce the product in either the official language English or French. During historical inquiry assignments, students are given choice over what topics (from a list related to the curriculum expectations) they want to learn about. I match them with other students in the class who want to learn about the same topic.

For my inquiry assignment on Canada at the turn of the century, students can choose from a long list of topics ranging from technology and transportation to arts and culture.

Tip #10 Artifacts

Last year, for one lesson I set up my classroom as an interactive museum. The unit was called Canada: A Changing Society 1890-1914 . I tried to find artifacts around my house and relatives’ houses that could potentially represent items from this time period.

I also printed off colour photos of daily living artifacts. Students had to circulate around the classroom in pairs and guess what the object was and its modern-day equivalent. The item that had most of the class confused was the manual meat grinder.

They definitely had a better understanding of the challenges of daily living from touching and seeing the different tools than if we had read about it online or in a textbook. Another year, while studying the settlement of Western Canada, I contacted a local museum and borrowed an educational kit that had replica items from the mid-1800s. Students loved seeing the toys and school materials from this time period.

Tip #11 Virtual Field Trips

The internet has changed the way I teach history. No longer are students only able to access information from library books, they can actually digitally visit the locations we are studying. This past year we used Google Maps to locate major battle sites and visit museum websites. Use Google to help locate interesting virtual field trips for your class this year.

Tip #12 Embrace Virtual Reality

Depending on your school budget Google Cardboard could be a very good investment. This small device allows students to download an app and view places in a virtual reality environment.

Tip #13 Use Engaging Curriculum Materials

At the end of the day, you still need to cover the contents of your curriculum. By integrating some of these tips into your daily lessons you will make history class more engaging for your students. If you teach Canadian history, check out the units below by 2 Peas and a Dog which will help you keep your students engaged.

Comprehensive History Units

Grade 6 Social Studies Bundle

This Grade 6 Social Studies Bundle for Strand A and Strand B contains 32 lessons to help your Grade 6 students explore and understand Canada’s Heritage and Identity: Communities in Canada, Past and Present, as well as Canada’s Interaction With the Global Community.

You can find the Grade 6 Social Studies Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Grade 7 History Bundle

This Grade 7 History Bundle covers New France, British North America, and Conflict and Challenges 1713-1850. It contains 45 lessons to help immerse your Grade 7 students in the fascinating world of Canadian history.

You can find the Grade 7 History Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Grade 8 History Bundle

This Grade 8 History Bundle covers Confederation, Western Settlement and Development, and Canada: A Changing Society, during the years 1850-1914. It contains 41 lessons to help immerse your Grade 8 students in the fascinating world of Canadian history.

You can find the Grade 8 History Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Also, make sure you take a look at modified resources for your classroom. These resources are created to align with critical concepts in the Ontario Curriculum but with significantly reduced reading and writing expectations within each lesson.

Grade 6 Modified Social Studies Bundle

This modified Grade 6 Social Studies bundle is for classroom teachers who are required to teach the Grade 6 Ontario Social Studies Curriculum but have students working significantly below grade level in reading, writing, and comprehension. Each of the 34 lessons aligns with a critical concept in the curriculum but has significantly reduced reading and writing expectations within the lesson.

You can find the Grade 6 Modified Social Studies Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Grade 7 Modified History Bundle

This modified Grade 7 History bundle is for classroom teachers who are required to teach the Grade 7 Ontario History Curriculum but have students working significantly below grade level in reading, writing, and comprehension. Each of the 43 lessons aligns with a critical concept in the curriculum but has significantly reduced reading and writing expectations within the lesson.

You can find the Grade 7 Modified History Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Grade 8 Modified History Bundle

This modified Grade 8 History bundle is for classroom teachers who are required to teach the Grade 8 Ontario History Curriculum but have students working significantly below grade level in reading, writing, and comprehension. Each of the 34 lessons aligns with a critical concept in the curriculum but has significantly reduced reading and writing expectations within the lesson.

You can find the Grade 8 Modified History Bundle on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD .

Are you teaching split grades?

All 2 Peas and a Dog history resources are available for split grades, including all modified units. Click the links below to learn more.

Grade 6/7 Social Studies Bundle – CAD$ or USD$
Modified Grade 6/7 Social Studies Bundle – CAD$ or USD$
Grade 7/8 History Bundle – CAD$ or USD$
Modified Grade 7/8 History Bundle – CAD$ or USD$

Don’t forget the report card comments!

2 Peas and a Dog makes assessments easy with these 100% editable report card comments. These comment banks are for Strands A and B for grades 6, 7, and 8 and are sorted by Levels 1-4, strengths, and next steps.

Grade 6 Social Studies Report Card Comments – CAD$ or USD$
Grade 7 History Report Card Comments – CAD$ or USD$
Grade 8 History Report Card Comments – CAD$ or USD$

I hope you use these strategies to make history class engaging for your students.

2 thoughts on “13 Ways To Make History Class Engaging For Students”

Kristy, I would like to know about your QR codes in history class. Can you send me some more information.

Sure, send me an email using my contact for on the website.

Comments are closed.

This FREE persuasive writing unit is

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By using highly-engaging rants, your students won’t even realize you’ve channeled their daily rants and complaints into high-quality, writing!

5 Ways to Make an Online Course More Interesting and Engaging

By James Rosenquist
September 7, 2019

You’ve decide to create an online course but are worried about how best to make it interesting and engaging.

We’ve compiled a list of teaching strategies and engagement techniques to help you attract and retain the attention of your students throughout the course.

Making content engaging is about much more than using visual aids. It encompasses everything you do in a course from how well you understand your audience, the design of your course, and how you encourage your students to use the knowledge you are providing.

#1 – Use Smart Planning: Know the Needs, Problems, and Desires of Your Students

Content is engaging when it is interesting and relevant to what students really want to learn.

Remember in school when you had to sit through classes where you absolutely hated the subject matter? Where every minute seemed like 10 minutes and it felt like torture just to survive the class?

This happens when a topic is neither interesting or relevant to students’ needs, problems, or desires. I hated high school chemistry. I didn’t like science and diagramming molecules was absolutely the worst possible use of my time.

Now if that class had been about how to get pretty girls to like me I probably wouldn’t have skipped a single lesson.

As much as possible, always align your content with what your students want.

You find out what your potential students want by conducting good market research ( here are some ways to do it ). Before you ever start to plan your course content, spend as much time as you can learning about what your students want.

This isn’t high school; your students aren’t forced to sit and listen to you. They are paying you to solve their problems.

#2 – Design Learning Outcomes That Align With Solving Your Students’ Problems

Once you learn what your customers’ problems are, you should design your content around objectives that solve those problems.

Learning outcomes are what a student will be able to know and do after taking your course.

When your lessons are continually moving toward a student’s desired outcomes (ability to solve their important problems), they feel a sense of accomplishment and purpose with what you are teaching. They will pay attention to what you say since they feel it has great value to them. If your lessons stray into irrelevancy, students will disengage.

Just think of your own life and the content you read, watch, or listen to. What do you do when the speaker starts talking about things you don’t care about? Your mind wanders. You tune out. You may get frustrated or even angry that your time is being wasted. You may pull out your phone and do something else more meaningful to you. Bottom line – you disengage.

If your lessons are laser focused on helping students understand and solve their most pressing problems and meet their greatest felt needs, you will absolutely keep them engaged.

#3 – Use the Seven Laws of Teaching

If you have no formal training as a teacher (or you haven’t had good training), it is worth investing in yourself and learning the art of teaching. Teaching is a skill that can be learned and refined just like anything else. Fortunately, there are good resources to help you learn and develop that skill.

One great starting place for learning the basics of teaching is a book called The Seven Laws of Teaching by John Milton Gregory. 1 Each of these laws breaks down the fundamental aspect of the teacher-student relationship and how to make your teaching understandable. Here is a quick summary of Gregory’s 7 laws:

Law 1: The Law of the Teacher

I’d like to ask you an important question.

What percentage of the teachers you have had in your life were good teachers?

I can honestly say that number for me is lower than 25%. Good teachers are truly hard to find and schools are filled with mediocre, even awful, teachers.

What makes many teachers so sub-standard? It could be they aren’t following the Law of the Teacher.

The Law of the Teacher is this: You can’t teach what you don’t know. Imperfect knowledge results in imperfect teaching.

Did you ever suspect that your teacher really didn’t know what they were talking about? Its sad when a student loses confidence in their teacher because they feel their teacher really isn’t prepared to teach the subject.

Here are some tips to put this law into practice:

Be an excellent student yourself. Know your subject very well.
Re-study a topic before teaching if you have taught it before so the material is up to date and fresh.
Clarify concepts in your own mind so you can help make them clear in your students’ minds. If you have questions yourself, find the answers before teaching.
Tap into the best thinkers in your subject matter areas. Learn from them so you can also become a great thinker.

Isn’t this the kind of teacher you would want to learn from? Be that person.

Law 2: The Law of the Learner

Being a great teacher is the first, foundational step. But you also need your students to become great learners.

Teaching is two-way communication: the communicator and the recipient. If the communicator is functioning at a high level but the recipient isn’t engaged, teaching will fail.

You can’t control your students but you can do some things to help them get the most out of your teaching.

The Law of the Learner is this: Students need to pay attention with interest to the content being taught.

There are two components to the Law of the Learner: attention and interest.

Interest comes with subject matter that is aligned with the learner’s natural desires. Inherent desire is much easier to work with than trying to create a desire that isn’t there.

Know your students’ interests through market research and asking students regularly.
Be a counselor or guide that facilitates your students becoming absorbed in the material. Help them solve problems, specifically relevant problems they have right now.
With online teaching, you cannot tell if your students are becoming distracted or not. To help with distraction, make the lessons short. Udemy suggests 7-8 minutes per lesson. Others say a maximum of 12 minutes. TV commercials happen after 8-10 minutes of watching a program. Those are some good lengths to model.
Tell your students at the start of the lesson why they should pay attention by telling them how the information will help them solve their problems, reach their goals, etc. Basically, you are justifying your content material in the minds of your students before starting. If your students asked, “Why should I listen to you?” make the answer your intro.
Quiz after every lesson. Set the expectation that learners will be held accountable for what they learn.

Law 3: The Law of Language

There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to understand what a teacher is saying, especially if you know the information is critical for your learning goals.

The Law of Language is this: The language used in teaching must be common to teacher and student.

Sometimes speakers like to impress their audience by using highly technical and erudite language (See what I did there? “Erudite” means “having or showing great knowledge or learning”). Unfortunately, this is often done for the benefit of the teacher’s ego and not for the listeners’ understanding.

Every area of knowledge tends to have its own terms that must be learned. For new students, these terms are unknown and make a subject sound hard and mysterious. You don’t want that.

Use language your students understand. When teaching new terms, explain them with known words. (i.e. you may not have known what “erudite” meant but you do know the words “having or showing great knowledge or learning”)
Use illustrations from the world and experience of your students. Take situations and concepts they already know to help explain what they don’t know.

You may not be able to figure out Einstein’s Theory of Relativity by reading math equations, but watch how this video explains the theory using ideas you are already familiar with (clocks, trains, etc.)

If you need help on how to explain complex ideas, go watch some YouTube videos and see if you can find good examples of how other communicators do it.

Law 4: The Law of the Lesson

Have you ever missed a class, or a series of classes, due to sickness and when you came back, you were completely lost when the teacher started talking?

Many topics are very dependent on a proper flow of thought or the way one idea logically builds off another.

For example, if you were learning how to frame a new shed for your tools or lawnmower, but the instructor never taught you how to measure, cut, and nail 2x4s properly, you will have a tough time completing the task. The teacher falsely assumed you had essential knowledge that you didn’t have.

The Law of the Lesson is this: whatever you teach must be learned from truth your students already know.

There is a reason that you learn ABCs in Kindergarten and not in High School. You need a foundation of the very basics of language before you start writing papers.

Unfortunately, many students get lost in classes because they do not have the proper knowledge foundation to build from. As a teacher, you must design your lessons like a builder who sets a solid foundation in the basics before moving on to more advanced concepts.

Don’t assume your students have even very basic knowledge about your subject (unless you are certain they do). There is a lot you know and take for granted that your students do not know. Make sure you develop a solid foundation in the basics before moving on to more advanced material.
Proceed by steps going from the known to the unknown. Build upon what you have already taught.
Use students’ existing knowledge and experience in your explanations and illustrations.
Use quizzes to ensure students are learning fundamental concepts before proceeding to the next lesson.

If you move in step by step fashion with your lessons, your students will be able to follow you much easier and be more engaged.

Law 5: The Law of the Teaching Process

When you were a kid, how did you typically learn things – by listening to your parents or learning on your own?

We tend to learn best when we learn to think and do for ourselves.

For example, I could tell you how to build a shed for your garden tools on a webpage. Or I could give you a step by step video demonstration and ask you to follow along and repeat the steps with me. Which would be more effective in helping you build a shed?

If I was teaching a group of students about the characteristics of pine trees, would it be better if I gave them a list in a classroom or took them outside and told them to come up with 25 observations and details about a pine tree from their own examination?

The Law of the Teaching Process is this: Excite and direct the self-activities of the learner, and as a rule, tell him nothing that he can learn for himself.

This law may sound a bit controversial. After all, we are used to being told everything in school by our teachers or textbooks.

The problem with traditional teaching is that students tend to retain a very small portion of what they read or listen to. Retention goes way up when students have to think and discover for themselves.

Instead of seeing yourself as a knowledge guru, see yourself as a guide or director that helps students learn for themselves.
Give students small, practical assignments that relate to the lesson and help them with whatever problem they are facing.

For example, if I was trying to teach productivity and I was on the topic of distractions, an assignment I might give is to have students write 5 times they got distracted while studying and the cause of the distraction. As a follow up assignment, I might have them brainstorm ways they might overcome the cause of the distraction.

As a teacher, I can teach them all kinds of information about distractions but ultimately I want a student to self-diagnose productivity problems so they can keep themselves on track long after they finished the course.

Law 6: The Law of the Learning Process

Teaching involves transmitting ideas that are in the mind of the teacher into the mind of the student. Unfortunately, the success of that process is often taken for granted and doesn’t always occur.

The Law of the Learning Process is this: The pupil must reproduce in his own mind the truth to be learned.

Have you ever told someone something and you felt it “went in one ear and out the other”? That phrase is about the failure of learning. For whatever reason, the information didn’t stick.

Our goal as teachers is to get the ideas to settle in the minds of students and be useful to use in the real world.

How do we know when the information truly sticks in the mind of the learner? Here are some tests:

The student can repeat what is taught
The student understands the thought
The student can translate the thought accurately into his own words
The student can give reasons for what he believes
The student can apply what he has learned to life

Notice how “repeating what is taught” is at the top of the learning process and not at the end. We don’t want students merely to say the information. We want them to be able to put it to work.

Use simple quizzes to test if a student can remember what has been taught.
Use “why” type questions to diagnose if a student truly understands the concepts of what has been taught.
Use short answer questions to test if a student can explain a concept in their own words.
Use essay type questions to see if a student can defend his reasons for believing what he does.
Use projects to see if a student can apply the information to real life.

Different types of tests and assignments can be used to diagnose if true learning has taken place. It is always helpful to see if students can truly solve the problems they need to solve on their own at the end of the course. Not only will that help you see if you have done your job as a teacher, but it will help the student see that they have truly benefited from what you have to offer.

Law 7: The Law of Review and Application

Information is easily forgotten. What percentage of the information you learned in school do you still remember?

As teachers, we must do what we can to help the information stick in the minds of our learners.

The Law of Review and Application is this: The completion, test and confirmation of the work of teaching must be made by review and application.

The goal of teaching is to perfect, confirm, and help the student put the knowledge to work for their benefit. Students can’t do that if they don’t remember what they’ve learned.

Review the most important concepts after every lesson.
Review briefly at the start of the lesson concepts you have taught that are necessary for current lesson. This is how you can help the student move from what is known to what is unknown.
Review the most important concepts at the end of the course.
Review using new examples and illustrations to keep the information fresh and demonstrate how the concepts help solve different problems.

Those are the seven laws of teaching by John Milton Gregory. I highly recommend you pick up the book as a reference to help you become a more interesting and engaging teacher.

Let’s look at some more tips to help keep your students engaged.

#4 – Use Step by Step Instruction to Teach Complex Tasks

People love step by step instructions for learning new things.

Think of the last time you put together a new piece of office furniture that came in a box. Did you use a one page diagram or did you use the step by step instructions?

You may not be teaching a course on how to put together office furniture but realize this:

All complex tasks and ideas can be reduced to simpler tasks and ideas.

Think about your favorite sport or exercise. How did you learn how to do it? Were you taught in a clear, step by step way or was the process haphazard and confusing?

I was briefly an amateur boxer and still do the conditioning routines weekly. Every week I see new people come into the gym for the first time and I observe the coach taking them step by step through the techniques of throwing the basic punches.

You wouldn’t think that punching is something that is very difficult to do. After all, kids learn how to do it without being told.

But there is a big difference from doing a task poorly and doing it with skill and efficiency. Every athlete knows this and trains in proper technique throughout their careers. The art of throwing a good punch involves far more body mechanics than just moving your fist forward. The motions are complex and taught best step by step.

Most of your students have knowledge that is far below yours. They need your help bringing them up to speed in a way that doesn’t leave gaps in their understanding. A step by step approach can really help in the right situation.

Think through your teaching goals:

What complex tasks or ideas are you going to teach?
How can you break these down into simpler tasks or concepts?
When might a step by step approach be most helpful for your students?

Sometimes you might think you will insult the intelligence of your students by teaching this way. But was your intelligence insulted by the step by step furniture instructions? No. If a step was too easy, you just moved through it quickly to the next. Your students will do the same.

#5 – Incorporate Smart Visual Aids

I saved visual aids for last because I suspect they are typically the first thing people think of when trying to make a course more engaging. However, pretty pictures won’t make up for poor teaching strategies.

So what kind of visual aids can make your course more engaging?

Demonstrations

Show how to do something yourself. If you can’t show you doing it, show someone else doing with a high level of skill and point out to your students what they are doing right.

Watch this video for a great example of an effective teaching demonstration – How to cook fish and chips with famous chef Gordon Ramsay:

After watching that video, I felt inspired to cook a recipe that I was intimidated by before. Creating great fish and chips went from a complex, intimidating idea to making me feel like I could easily do it too. That is exactly what you want your students to feel also – empowered and encouraged by your instruction.

Graphics That Explain Complicated Ideas

Any time you can visually demonstrate a complex idea it will be helpful to students.

For instance, what is easier to learn: a words-only lecture on the United States Federal Budget or a graphic like this?

Source: Congressional Budget Office

Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words.

Important facts or concepts

Even simply showing important facts in visual form on screen can help make them more memorable. Its why companies use marketing messages next to their logos or politicians use slogans on their campaign signs. Statistics benefit from visual aids too.

I hope you learned a bit more about how to make your courses more interesting and engaging for your students.

Remember – the most important thing is to stay focused on helping your students solve problems that are important to them. Teaching techniques, memory aids, and visual aids are all designed to help facilitate that primary objective.

Helpful Resources – 10 Places to Sell Your Course Online

1. Milton, John Gregory. The Seven Laws of Teaching. United States: ReadaClassic.com, 2010 (Reprint).

Jim Rosenquist

Jim started earning a living online in 1999 and became a solo entrepreneur in 2001. He started Solo Intel in 2019 as a way to help solo entrepreneurs and small operators become more strategic with their online business.

More Intel for Course Creation

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If you don’t want to spend as much time and money marketing your course, you can always try to sell your content on course marketplaces with existing audiences. Here are 10 you may want to consider.

Steps in Creating an Online Course Using a Market Driven Approach

What is the most strategic way to develop an online course with the most chance of succeeding? We suggest a market-driven approach.

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Going through the time and expense of creating a course that doesn’t sell is a terrible feeling. Learn how to do smart market research before building your course for the best chance to succeed.

Equipment Needed to Create an Online Course

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11 Places to Get Expert Course Creation Training for Little to No Cost

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How To Complete Your Homework Assignment In A Fun Way

While doing homework is a necessary part of your academic studies, it doesn't mean you can’t find ways of making the activity an enjoyable one. This can be accomplished in various ways and you also have a long history of bored students to assist you with good ideas from which you can build on as well.

The main goal at the end should be the proper completion of your assignments, to accomplish this you can make use of various tools to assist you. At the same time, you can also choose from various methods and schemes of activity that suits your personal tastes. The following is a list of ideas that can help make completing your assignments more than just a chore:

Form a peer group or work with friends

Working with friends is an easy way of making your assignments an enjoyable and productive experience. Ask your classmates to join you in forming a study group or join an existing one if available.

Make use of animated educational videos

There are many animated and graphical videos discussing difficult academic topics and principles. These can usually be found for free viewing on just about every popular streaming website. Visit any of these sites and use the search bar to search for your desired topic, you will find many videos providing interesting demonstrations and explanations of academic topics.

Create quiz cards to help with revision later on

Most teachers structure assignment content to aid students study for their final exams. You could give yourself the project of creating quiz cards to help you study as you proceed through your homework. Creating a short checklist can also be quite useful in giving yourself a way to assess your progress as you work.

Give yourself time challenges

Instead of dragging through your assignments, challenge yourself to complete them as fast as you can. One problem many students experience while conducting their studies is not lack of understanding, but lack of interest. Make your assignments more challenging by giving yourself time limits to beat and improve upon.

Alternate between set periods of work and relaxation

Working for long hours can cause serious mental strain, especially after spending all day at school studying. Separate your assignments into smaller modules and work on each one separately, with breaks in between. This will help reduce the monotony of completing homework and improve your efficiency.

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How To Make An Attractive Assignment

The first question you don't ask yourself, when you get your college assignment brief, is how to make my assignment attractive. You're usually too focused on just getting the essay written. However, you should keep that question in the back of your mind. The more attractive your essay is, the more likely it is to get good marks. Here's a few ways to make your assignments more creative and engaging.

Write a strong introduction

Your introduction is the one chance you have to really hook your reader and get them interested in what you have to say. To make your essay more interesting, make sure you have a strong and unique point to argue in the main body. Then, you'll be able to present that argument in your introduction, drawing your readers in further.

Use relevant and interesting examples

When you're doing your research for your university essay, look for the most interesting sources you can to back up your arguments. The most recent and relevant the research you can find, the better. Find a new angle on your argument. How does the issue affect those in Australia? What does the future hold for your topic? The more original your argument, the better.

Plan your work

Good planning is the underpinning of all beautiful assignments. Take the time to sit and brainstorm all of your ideas before you commit them to paper. Then, you can narrow them down so you're only using the best ones when you're writing. Also, creating a plan means your assignment will be much more cohesive, and so easier to read.

Be sure you understand the question

Any school in Australia will mark you down if it's clear that you don't understand the question. Read the question carefully several times, and make notes. Is there anything you're not sure of? Take the time to ask your professor before you get started. Doing so means you won't waste time on answering the question incorrectly.

Do the research

Finally, don't neglect the study time needed to truly understand your subject. If you do the reading, it will shine through in your essay.

If you follow these tips, you'll create an attractive essay that will teach the reader something new, and keep them engaged as they read it. That way, you'll be much more likely to get good marks on your work. Keep these in the mind the next time you get an assignment.

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategic Plan 2022 – 2026

Discover more.

Download the Strategy (PDF)

Access the Fact Sheet

Read tHE EXECUTIVE ORDER

Message from the Secretary of State

The State Department is our nation’s oldest cabinet agency, our nation’s lead foreign affairs agency, and its employees are the face of the United States to the rest of the world. In order to effectively pursue our foreign policy goals and ensure our national security, it is imperative we create a workforce that truly reflects the country we represent.

Our country’s diversity is our greatest strength. When we fully leverage everyone and everything our nation has to offer, our foreign policy is stronger, smarter, and more creative. As I said in my confirmation hearing, I will measure the success of my tenure based on how well we can recruit and retain a workforce that looks like America. Within the first few months of my administration, I appointed the Department’s first-ever stand-alone Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, who reports directly to me and leads the newly created Secretary’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. I also created the Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Council to help achieve the goals and objectives outlined in the following Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Strategic Plan.

Together, we will ensure that the Department of State is a leader in government-wide efforts to advance DEIA goals for the federal workforce. In doing that, we will also be able to ensure that the Department itself is in the strongest possible position to deliver for the U.S. people in an increasingly diverse, complex, and interconnected world.

Historic Plan to Advance Equity in U.S. Foreign Policy

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Diversity Is an Essential Component of the U.S. Diplomatic Corps

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COMMENTS

13 Fun Homework Ideas: The Best Ways To Make Homework Fun
Televisions and iPads are a no go at homework time! 12. Remember to be positive. Remember to always be upbeat and positive about school and the importance of their homework. Give your child lots of praise and encouragement about how well they're doing to help them stay motivated and on track.
How to Make Homework Fun
Listen to Music: Create a motivating study playlist. Make It Visual: Use colors and visuals to make notes pop. Connect to Real Life: Relate homework to everyday situations. Stay Organized: Use planners to stay on top of assignments. These simple tips can make homework less daunting and more enjoyable.
5 Ways to Make Homework More Meaningful
1. Less is More. A 2017 study analyzed the homework assignments of more than 20,000 middle and high school students and found that teachers are often a bad judge of how long homework will take. According to researchers, students spend as much as 85 minutes or as little as 30 minutes on homework that teachers imagined would take students one ...
20 Interactive Classroom Activities for College Students
A more interactive class can also make things easier for you—the more work students do in class, the less you have to do. Even two minutes of not talking can re-energize you for the rest of the class. Plus, these six methods outlined above don't require any large-scale changes to your class prep.
13 Ways to Make Homework More Meaningful and Engaging
Priming the brain to focus on particular aspects of the learning experience helps the brain process the information for long-term retention. Setting purpose for homework assignments has an impact on learning and the assignment's completion rate, as research by Marzano and others confirms. 2. Incorporate a cause into the assignment.
28 Ideas On How To Make Homework Fun For Students
Working on homework teaches children that work is a part of life, not just school, and fosters friendship without being overpowering. 5. Design an Awesome Workspace. Improve the area where your kids complete their schoolwork to increase efficiency, creativity, and problem-solving abilities.
Is Homework Ever Fun? 10 Ways Teachers Can Make It More Engaging
Incorporate Art. Most students enjoy engaging in creative thinking. Help make homework more fun and relaxing by adding art-focused assignments to the mix. One idea is to give students options to draw, write a song, or play an instrument in response to a certain book. Chris Cotter, director at Alpros, a language school in Japan, adds that ...
Creating Assignments
Double-check alignment. After creating your assignments, go back to your learning objectives and make sure there is still a good match between what you want students to learn and what you are asking them to do. If you find a mismatch, you will need to adjust either the assignments or the learning objectives.
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Read on for Zimmerman's summer homework game plan and ideas for how to make summer assignments more fun for everyone. 1. Try a New Student Meet and Greet. If possible, meet your incoming students before summer break (even if it's virtual!) to instill the importance of summer learning. At the end of the school year, coordinate with the ...
19 Engagement Activities to Make Learning Fun for Students
Students actively engage in the process, creating a fun way to interact with the material. 10. Jot it down. Jot it down is an engagement activity that encourages active listening in the classroom. During a lecture or discussion, give students time to "jot down" points, thoughts, or questions about the topic.
15 Ways to Make Studying Less Stressful for Maximum Motivation and
The chances are that the rest will come back to you when you remember the visual cue. 5. Create posters. Summarising concepts on posters gives you something different to do, and also allows you to be a bit creative with your designs, injecting some fun into your studying in the process.
You Can Make Studying Fun! Try these Top Tricks and Tips
Here are two strategies to make studying with a friend more engaging: Make a list of questions and answers for your study buddy to quiz you on. Reward each other with food when you get all of the correct. Teach your friend the material. This helps you understand it a new way, and your friend learns something interesting in the process. 3.
How to Make Studying Fun: 12 Tips to Enjoy Your Study Sessions
Here's how you can apply it during your study sessions: Set a specific task for your study session. Set a timer for 25 minutes. Work on the task until the timer rings. Take a five-minute break. (Set a timer for the break too.) Repeat the steps listed above. Take a longer break of 15-30 minutes every four rounds.
7 Easy Ways to Turn Boring Worksheets into Engaging Activities
7. group contest. How it works: Add an extra level of engagement to literally any worksheet by making it a group contest where the first group to get all the answers correct (or the most answers correct) wins. The key: assign certain questions to each student.
9 Ways to Finish Homework in College Even When You Don't Feel Like It
6. Set an Alarm. Not just any alarm. One programmed to tell you what you need to do and how it will impact your day. Think, "start working on your paper now and you'll be able to go to a movie.". If you ignore that one, then set another saying, "if you start your paper now, you can watch an hourlong drama," and so on.
13 Fun Homework Ideas: The Best Ways To Make Homework Fun
Set up a homework play date. Go outside. Turn it into a game. Let them play teacher. Use a timer. Create a special homework space. Remember to be positive. Get help if you need i t. Thankfully, there are ways of making homework less boring and that little bit more fun for your child.
How Do I Create Meaningful and Effective Assignments?
However, when introducing your assignment to your students, there are several things you will need to clearly outline for them in order to ensure the most successful assignments possible. First, you will need to articulate the purpose of the assignment. Even though you know why the assignment is important and what it is meant to accomplish, you ...
Creating and Adapting Assignments for Online Courses
Summary. Adjustments to your assignment design can guide students toward academic success while leveraging the benefits of the online environment. Effective assignments in online courses are: Aligned to course learning outcomes. Authentic and reflect real-life tasks. Accessible and inclusive for all learners.
13 Ways To Make History Class Engaging For Students
Tip #5 Bring In Primary Sources. Where possible bring in primary sources. Photos from the time period and archival documents can make history seem more authentic to students. Lots of internet sites (government archives) have access to these excellent pieces of history. A quick Google search will contain lots of ideas.
5 Ways to Make an Online Course More Interesting and Engaging
Here are some tips to put this law into practice: Be an excellent student yourself. Know your subject very well. Re-study a topic before teaching if you have taught it before so the material is up to date and fresh. Clarify concepts in your own mind so you can help make them clear in your students' minds.
Interesting Ideas On How To Make Assignments More Fun
Give yourself time challenges. Instead of dragging through your assignments, challenge yourself to complete them as fast as you can. One problem many students experience while conducting their studies is not lack of understanding, but lack of interest. Make your assignments more challenging by giving yourself time limits to beat and improve upon.
How To Make An Attractive Assignment
The more attractive your essay is, the more likely it is to get good marks. Here's a few ways to make your assignments more creative and engaging. Write a strong introduction. Your introduction is the one chance you have to really hook your reader and get them interested in what you have to say. To make your essay more interesting, make sure ...
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America's top central banker has unambiguously signaled that lower interest rates are finally on the horizon, marking a crucial milestone for the Federal Reserve's historic — and, so far ...
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Strategic Plan
The U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability sets forth a framework for U.S. government efforts to prevent conflict, stabilize conflict-affected areas, and address global fragility, in line with the Global Fragility Act of 2019. America's prosperity and security depend on peaceful, self-reliant, U.S. economic and security partners. By breaking the costly cycle of conflict and ...
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