It’s fourth quarter and your students have senioritis. The problem is: they’re freshmen. It’s a common ailment among students this time of year. You might have caught it yourself. An antidote to counting down the days until the end of the school year is to inject your lessons with something unexpected and fun. Sure, you still have to teach the objective, but who says it all hast to be lectures, notes, and worksheets? It could be wigs, costumes, and props – even in math and science. It’s Outrageous Teaching and it’s guaranteed to hold student interest, encourage student engagement, and stop clock watching and sky-gazing.
Inside the School online seminar presenter Stanley Pogrow, Ph.D. recommends educators teach at least one outrageous lesson a semester.
“Surprise is everything. You want to teach a lesson that puts the students in the palm of your hand,” Pogrow said. “We’re talking about a very serious educational technique. It’s one that is designed first and foremost to teach the content that you are required to teach, but doing it in a very different fashion.”
The goal of teaching an outrageous lesson is to teach the same content objectives in the same amount of time – but teach it very differently. Pogrow said to use drama and humor to teach the content in lieu of conventional teaching.
The structure of an outrageous lesson starts with surprise. The students need to say “what the heck is going on here?” Pogrow said to use a scenario and a storyline to implement an outrageous lesson. The lesson will end when the students come up with solutions for the problem or story you created. Pogrow said to explain the learning objective to close the lesson.
“The students use content to rescue or save the day,” Pogrow said.
Pogrow reviewed several different examples of teaching content outrageously. He said there are many different ways to teach an outrageous lesson and teachers shouldn’t be afraid to try something completely out of the ordinary.
“Some examples of outrageous lessons have involved teachers teaching from underneath the desk, running in and out of the room, doing the whole period standing in a closet hidden from view,” Pogrow said.
There are many benefits to teaching unusual lessons and most of them are for the students.
“[These lessons] create a sense of wonder and it taps into the students’ sense of imagination. Socrates said wisdom begins with wonder. Imagination is so powerful,” Pogrow said.
Teaching an outrageous lesson increases learning and retention in the same amount of time. Outrageous teaching brings reluctant and resistant learners to the forefront of the learning process. It works just as effectively with fourth graders as it does with twelfth graders. Pogrow said any lesson can be converted into an outrageous lesson.
“It still takes a single period. You’ll see that students who have not participated all semester will be one of the first ones to volunteer,” Pogrow said.
There are many benefits for the teachers who teach unusual lessons. It makes teaching more fun and interesting, an occasional outrageous lesson or unit changes the perception of you as a teacher and it provides new techniques.
“Never in the history of teaching outrageously has a student ever asked to go to the bathroom or asked for a pencil. It is amazing how things change,” Pogrow said.
Pogrow said he understands the apprehension some educators may have when teaching a lesson outrageously for the first time but says there is no reason to worry.
“What if it doesn’t work? It’s the same concern as any lesson or the feelings you have on the first day of class,” Pogrow said. “The students will be so curious to what is going on and they are on such a high from what is going on in the classroom they will hang on your every word.”
There are so many benefits for the students and teachers that Pogrow said that every educator should attempt teaching an outrageous lesson. These unusual lessons reignite the passion for teaching that educators have when they first enter the profession. Even better is that the students will carry the lesson with them for years to come.
“You can be the teacher whose lessons students remember 20 or 30 years later. You can be the teacher that sparks their interest in the content and improves their performance. You can be the teacher that enables them to see that their inventive minds are valued and enhance content learning,” Pogrow said.
