Teaching is a difficult task, but it can be made easier if you’re aware of the five senses that are present in every moment. The students will be able to teach themselves a lesson if they are only given the tools that are necessary for them to learn. Teachers and students can work together and it can make online classes more interesting.
It’s no secret that teachers and students can sometimes butt heads when it comes to classroom management. But a new study suggests that there may be a silver lining to this seemingly never-ending battle: classroom live can help improve student engagement and overall performance.
Furthermore, each sense should be used in combination with other senses to create an unbeatable online learning environment; this ensures that your students will enjoy learning while simultaneously developing their cognitive skills.
Once you’re aware of the five senses and how to use them, you should look at how to approach teaching in general. Many teachers today use a so-called ‘dumbed down’ approach to teaching, which makes the student feel stupid (or dumb) and thus lowers their self-esteem. This can have a negative impact on their future lessons and, if not corrected, could lead to poor performance.
By using them properly, you can simplify tasks that seem complicated and complex, making them easier and faster to digest. In short, you will improve your teaching skills drastically and become a sought-after teacher by students.
Let’s take a look at how you can use the five senses in combination with each other to improve your teaching.
- Touch – a hands-on approach to learning
Touching is one of our most important senses, and if we want to teach something, it should involve physical interaction with the student. This way, they will be able to feel the material and see it with their own two eyes, not just read about it or hear about it.
The lesson plan that involves using touch can be difficult for you to create as you will have to contemplate what tools will be used for the given task, but you should also think of ways how to make the lesson practical and enjoyable for your students.
- Sight – use pictures, drawings, photos, and/or hands-on materials
You may have to make a decision between using pictures, drawings, or objects as tools to teach a topic. They are all great tools to engage the students’ attention and keep them interested in what you’re teaching.
The problem is that some students, especially those with visual impairments, may need aids for visually following the lesson. When deciding whether to use photos or objects (see above), the choice should be based on how important it is for your audience that they have visual aids or not.
- Taste – real food or a taste test
You can use food to teach a lesson about hygiene, nutrition, culture, or even history lessons. You can give the students small pieces of food and let them taste it, or you can provide a menu with pictures of what they’re eating and where it comes from.
When using real food, it’s important not to make the lesson complex, as most students may become sick due to their weakened immune system, which is still adapting to the new diet (see Immune System). If you choose to use pictures of food instead, you should thoroughly research what they are eating so they won’t end up confused by their diet.
- Smell – smell the plant and/or observe what it looks like
The sense of smell is so important that it was even given a special name: olfaction, which means ‘to perceive by smelling.’ By using smell as a teaching tool for your lessons, you’ll be able to focus on visual information such as illustrations or descriptions provided by the teacher. At the same time, you can also ask your students to smell different plants because this is one of the most important ways how they will improve their overall health.
- Hearing – playing music or sound clips outside the classroom
You can easily use this sense to teach history or geography lessons outside of the classroom. If most of your students are not born in the country where they live and study, you can ask them to collect information about the culture through their hearing.
For example, if you’re teaching a history lesson about Brazil, you can make music (or even sing) outside the classroom that comes from a Brazilian song/artist. After some time passes and the whole school hears this music for a few days in a row, so will your students.
The five senses can greatly enrich your lessons and help you teach your students more effectively. The key is to find out what works best for the given topic and situation because every class is different. Now you are aware of the five senses, and how they can help you become a better teacher, you should also come up with a lesson plan that will suit your students best.
Classroom online is a growing trend in education. Many schools are offering online education as an alternative to traditional classroom instruction. Class management is a critical part of online education. Teachers must be able to effectively manage their classes in order to ensure that all students are successful. Teachers can create their own app with the help of Classplus.
