Teaching Tip #26

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #26

How do you implement "velcro learning" in your classroom?

Velcro learning is when the teacher is able to match the content of the class to the relevancy of either the students’ lives or the world around them.  When this is done – and in my opinion, it is not done nearly enough, it makes learning sticky, like Velcro.

The text has made it clear that today’s students are more distracted than ever and willing to either drop out or just tune out.  So the implications for “Velcro learning” are paramount.  Too often digital learners have to suffer through school because it has no relevancy.  As one critic put it – I think it was Marc Prensky in “Engage Me or Enrage Me” – who said that one student told him that he had to “power down” when he came to school.  How sad is that?

When learning is “sticky” in that the knowledge we want to teach proves to be relevant to the students and their “just-in-time” learning styles, it is going to engage and inspire the students.