Lanca what? Who is Lancelot and what are his principles?

Okay folks, let's face it, no one wants to sit in a class so boring you would rather be picking toe jam from between your grandmother's toes.  You know as an aspiring teacher it is your responsibility to make your students WANT to engage and ENJOY learning. I bet some of your worst fears are that you are going to be a less than thrilling teacher.

So, where do you start?  What do you do?  What do you need to know about fostering interest? Well, have no fear, the following video gives you the breakdown of William H. Lancelot's Principles of Interest that have been found to be true and effective. Lancelot's Principles of Interest play an important role in creating a learning environment that is fun, engaging, and, well, interesting!

The video will help in understanding the principles behind creating interest, but its up to you to spend the time required to plan lessons utilizing the strategies.  I'll be honest, its not always easy. Scour resources found online (NAAE CoP), utilize the resource room, engage in peer collaboration, and reflect on personal experiences to help in the lesson planning and development process!

What is an Interest Approach? (And, what is not?!)

A challenge faced by many high school educators is figuring out a way to ignite interest and excitement in students about the upcoming lesson for any particular day.  Engaging students has been found to promote retention of material and increase awareness of the relevance and applicability of the material being taught.  The following video focuses on how to foster interest from the very beginning of a class through the use of an interest approach, also known as the anticipatory set, set induction, or hook.  Grabbing the attention of the students from the get-go is the whole goal.  You want to make sure students see the importance of the lesson they are about to learn, and this can be accomplished by an interest approach.  Interest approaches are short activities, between 5 and 10 minutes, that 'hook' the students and have them sitting on the edge of their seats.

This video was developed to not only provide specific information on what an interest approach is, and is not, but to help in your Lab II - Interest Approach planning.  I won't lie, sometimes figuring out an interest approach is difficult, but utilizing some of the resources provided by the PSU faculty and using your own creative ingenuity, I'm sure you will be developing interest approaches in no time!

But, as always, never hesitate to come to one of the AEE Teacher Education team with questions! We are here to help you develop and become one of the nation's best Ag Teachers!