what's up everybody i'm Cecilia Tamez and welcome back to the game plan educational solutions the best channel for history teachers to level up their mindset their management and their methodology in today's video i'm gonna be sharing the most asked question probably ever in the internet for social studies teachers which is how do you teach history in an interesting way like how do you get the students to buy into your lesson how do you get them like intrinsically motivated how do you get them to say the most magical words any history teacher can hear and that is your class is my favorite if you are excited to get your students to tell you those three magic words make sure you hit the like button make sure you hit the subscribe button and definitely make sure you hit that notification bell so you can be alerted any time i drop a new video by subscribing you are supporting the content creation in this channel and you are also helping other educators who may need to see this video be able to access this content so thank you in advance for all your support and all your love this channel is not possible without you so without further ado let's jump right in all right y'all so my first tip for teaching history in an interesting way and if you've watched my other videos which i will link here above and also down below you know that i'm a huge proponent in using historical storytelling in order to teach in an engaging and an effective way now it's not just my personal preference it's also been psychologically tested and proven that people remember stories that they have emotional reactions to so let me give you an example let's say that i say alright folks today we are going to learn about turtles and i start talking about turtles and reading about it in a science book or whatever but then let's say that i say hey guys today we're going to learn about turtles so i wanted to bring this little guy to class and actually um you know i first got into turtles because my grandmother uh purchased this little michelangelo plushie for me you know we were a family that didn't have a lot of money and her buying this michelangelo which was pretty pricey back in the day was a such a huge deal for me i'm a grown woman now and i still have this ninja turtle plushie so today we're gonna learn about what make turtles so special so do you see that by telling you a story you are prepping your class to be more invested in the content you are about to share so even if the rest of the content is not necessarily so thrilling and amusing you already hooked your class by giving them an emotional anchor that they can relate to you are creating instant relevancy the moment that you share a story that evokes an emotional response from your class my only recommendation is make sure the story is relevant and also you have to be really careful about this and about the execution you want to make sure that the story is not prolonged and that you don't go off on a tangent because then your students will only remember the story and they'll have a more challenging time making a connection to why you're even telling us the turtle story my second tip for teaching history in an interesting way is to use visuals now i know what you might be thinking well not every student is the visual learner i know but a majority of our students are and if you think about it one of the ways in which facts ideas information is internalized by our brain is we have to see it we have to visualize it in our mind's eye we have to assimilate this maybe by something we see or smell describe feel etc so honestly if you're appealing to any of the five senses you're gonna get your students interested in that information the the reason why this happens is because again you are creating an immediate relevance when you use a visual you are without having to break a sweat evoking an emotional response from your students that will work for example i often like to use the picture of george washington crossing the delaware river and i actually tell a story as my students see this visual i like to show the visual towards the end of the story so that i can really fire up their imagination and kind of prep them right get them thinking about the circumstances the situation i want these images to come to life when i show that visual up on the screen and now my students are primed for when we do something that may not be so exciting right class popcorn reading or maybe we're getting ready to do a project or a presentation or some research and again it's just to help prime the audience priming your audience is extremely important and visuals can help you do that and create interest in your class so my third and final tip this one is a surefire way no miss way to get your class to be more interesting you know a lot of people are like well you know math lends itself to games social studies is where it's at y'all um so in my class what i like to do is i often use games as a pre-assessment to see where my students are at i use it as a post assessment as a formative assessment summative assessment um i'm not just a pen and paper type of person and i know my students greatly appreciate that but this the usage of games in my class really reflects the fact that i'm taking my students interest in mine a lot of my students are very competitive they might be athletes or you know just basically um and and it's not necessarily just like well a certain age group will appreciate games trust me even adults are amused even we are amused by games and when you utilize games in your history class you're sustaining your students attention they are a hundred percent engaged and again this goes back over a decade of experience has shown me that games are the way to get your class hooked now some advice about using games you want to make sure that the game is not just entertaining you want to make sure that you're actually targeting the information that you need to be targeting that you're looping the content that you need to review and that you're really assessing the best questions that'll give you the most ideal picture of where your students are at before you move on to your content or before you move on to your next lesson so again you want to make sure that you are utilizing games as a tool for engagement as a tool for assessment and as a tool to gauge interest because let's say that the first half of class you need a direct teach or your students need to do research or they need to do a collaborative work activity or they need to do an essay or question answer they will find a motivation to do that work if they know at the end of the class they get to play a game right and the game is also going to be used to your purpose so games will create intrinsic motivation in your class they will create interest and they will create a they will enhance the relationship you have with your students because they'll feel heard seen listened to now i know i said i would only share three tips but this final bonus tip if you did not implement this it's going to be very challenging for you to teach history in an interesting way nothing will work not the stories not the visuals not the games if you do not take the time to nurture the relationship with your class if you if your students feel like you like them because i've mentioned this in other videos if you're a subscriber to my channel students do not do work students do not participate they do not engage for people that they feel do not like them but if they feel like seen heard if they find you interesting they are going to be a lot more amenable and influenced in being receptive to your games to your visuals to your stories because now there's an initial interest all of this all these three tips are founded on one thing and that is get to new york class i hope this video was insightful to you i hope it gave you three very manageable strategies that you can use in your classroom if you're interested in learning how you can be more effective efficient and influential in your classroom click the link below to sign up for my exclusive program for social studies teachers teach like an influencer as always i hope you have a fantastic day until next time class dismissed