Hype Training 101: How to hype students up for any lesson

We all know the classroom can be a place some students dread. Why? I have asked students and always get the same answer: "It's sooooooo boring!" How do we change their mindset that learning is boring? We make learning an experience.  Something students truly look forward to and it starts with us!

After having many different students over the years I have worked on creating lessons that are challenging, but creative and engaging. I want students to see learning as an experience, a journey that can be frustrating, challenging, fun, and exciting. I realized quickly with 5th graders it's all about how you sell it. Have you ever been a party with a DJ? If you have you know that the DJ makes the party great. They are the ones who decide which songs to play and hypes up the crowd making them excited to be there and dance the night away. You have to be that DJ. That hype-woman(man) that makes your classroom the place to be. We have to know which assignments to give and when. We also have to make those assignments applicable or exciting to the students to have them tune in. There are some simple and more elaborate things I use to engage my students. I like to change it up because just like a DJ, you can't play the same song 3 times in a row. The crowd or in this case the students are going to get bored of it. Here are a few ideas that you can use to hype up any lesson to get students excited about what they are learning.

Add Drums
Recently I have started to add drums to my math lessons. I had the idea from something I saw when I went to the Ron Clark Academy (RCA) a few years ago. While I was there I observed the use of drums in classrooms to keep students on track. They would choose students, especially those who needed help focusing and give them the honor of using the drums during class. They would play them when students gave correct answers, gave good points, or in celebratory moments. I thought it was cool at the time, but I didn't know when or how to use it in my own classroom. I went to Marshalls several months later and came upon a drum that I just had to buy for my room. I realized if I was going to ever use it I might need more than one drum...so what did I do? I bought 20, just kidding. I ended up asking my community for empty oatmeal containers. I covered them with fun painted paper and they became my "drums". I never really took them out until one math lesson. We were working on multi-step fraction problems and I could tell I was losing student interest. Inspired by RCA, I took out my original drum and hit it every time my students chimed in with the next correct step. The students woke up and wanted to participate. After one problem, I started a band and they have been excited ever since.

Cheer It Up
I have never been a cheerleader, but I love music and dance. I try to include both in my classroom the best I can. Over the past few years, I have personally developed some cheers to promote learning in my class and create a team atmosphere. If you love music or are just a spirited cheerleader in your own right consider creating some cheers. Cheers to help your students or have them make some on their own. I have had students create group cheers, class cheers, and even academic cheers using important vocabulary or concepts to help them remember crucial information.

Go Somewhere
Anytime you make learning real to students and take them somewhere it can truly excite and connect students with the material. I grew up in the Chicago Suburbs so I had the privilege of attending all the Chicago area museums and zoos to really connect to the material. When I moved to a rural area I realized quickly that these experiences would be a little more challenging to obtain but not impossible. I get to take my students yearly to Heritage Days, a historical based weekend event that happens in our time. This event has many artisans and replicates a rendezvous of traders from a period of time. These traders represent various time periods that are taught in our 5th grade curriculum. It is an experience that student can't get in a classroom. They step back in time and we reflect it on it all year. I have seen teachers take their students to the courthouse for fairy tale trials, to a nearby college to learn about a particular subject or work with amazing tools. A teacher could take to a local store or a mall to practice math skills. The possibilities are endless! You can make learning tangible, but also make those community connections. Now with digital media expanding places are closer than ever. They are only a phone/tablet/computer away. I have used Virtual Reality apps to take my students places and give them experiences I physically can't. This year alone I used the NBC app to allow my students to experience what it is like to ski during the Winter Olympics. All this took was my iPhone and a $10 VR Headset from Walmart.

Heritage Days: Showing off my archery skills

Give them a Job
Students love experiences and putting them in a role. By giving them a job they will definitely play the part and the learning will become important to their reality. I try to make the material we are learning applicable to the lives of my students. That is why during our ancient Greek lessons I "take my students to a Greek restaurant." I flip my room into a restaurant! Complete with tablecloths, menus, music and I play the waiter. They are given the job of spending so much money and making sure everyone in their family gets something to eat. My students practice adding and subtracting decimals while putting them in a scenario that many of them have been a part of before. We practice figuring out the tip and writing checks as well. I have also put my students in the role of an editor and chief of a magazine where they have to make corrections to articles. Students have also been detectives looking for the stolen Constitution or trying to track down Carmen Sandiego and the Main-I-Deer Statue. We have even been crazy bakers who have to figure out the Author's Purpose and double recipes for catering requests.  I am constantly trying to find ways to integrate real-world jobs or applications in our curriculum. If students have a goal or feel as though they have a job during a lesson they are more invested and excited to play their part. The same goes for readers theater and literature circles. When given a role of value many students will rise to the occasion.

Connect Them With the World
Along with making real-world experiences for my students, I have been using technology in my class to connect them with the world. When we are researching people, learning about an event, or just excited to share certain skills, I have my students tweet different people, groups, or companies and see if we get a response. It was amazing to get responses from Team Canada during our whole school Olympics and to hear from Mr.Owl during our science lab. It is not guaranteed, but it can be a great way for your students to get excited about a lesson. You can also partner with another classroom and share what you are learning or discuss via twitter or Flipgrid.  I have seen classroom connections with other classrooms and connections with experts on Skype (something I am still working on). If your school has access to technology why not use it to connect your students with the world around them. Connect them to what they are learning or pose a question to the world and see what they get in return. It's a great way to have students get excited about what their learning and share it with others. Technology isn't the only way to connect students with the world, consider connecting with local experts, classrooms, or businesses. This helps not only the community but allows students to feel more connected to what is local to them.

With all of these ideas, the main thing to take away is to be excited! As the teacher, it is all about how you sell it. If you apologize and say it is going to be a boring day today they will never buy into it. Instead, you have to believe in your lessons, if you don't love the lesson consider adding something to it to make it something you are proud of. Smile and be excited! If you are excited and play your role the students will get into it and be excited to learn. It starts with us! We have to believe in the magic and make our lessons joyful for our students to get excited about learning. Bring your all and hype up the crowd. I promise you will grab their attention.

How do you hype up your students? How do you engage them in your lessons? Have you used some of the techniques I listed or do you have some different ones?
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