How can you engage students by incorporating their interests and passions into your curriculum design?

A key aspect of employment fir and talent match is to match the profile with candidate interest. If that is true of employees it should be true of students too. Experiential learning or learning by action is a teaching method which helps students to learn by doing things and not be sitting in a class and listening to a teacher. Students' hobbies, interests can be beautifully harnessed in the class through project-based learning activities, class activities that showcase their talent and connect that with the subject at hand. Students are creative, media savvy and tech-savvy. Why not engage these interests in getting them to teach the others. If we treat them as adults and their hobbies as important, they respond accordingly

Experiential learning wherein the students are constructively engaged with hands on activities opens the whole world of discovery. The educator's role to execute as a facilitator requires research, in-depth knowledge, openness to critical perspectives, skilled to give prompt instructions and set attainable norms is vital.

There is already so much cramped into the curriculum that there is no physical time or space to accommodate extra things into your curriculum. When you have over 100 students in each class, knowing your students becomes redundant.

My experience has taught me that you cannot get away from the human factor in the classroom. What does it mean in terms of the curriculum? It means that the students that gather in each classroom are individuals with their particular interests and learning approaches. As a teacher, must give yourself time to know them as human beings and then plan your teaching path. And, that path must be flexible, and adaptable to the different circumstances that cross those individuals' lives. Again, through my experience, I know that in the end, the whole learning adventure will be a success.

As a science teacher, I used to start each school year having students complete a "Sci-ography," a little form that let them tell me about their experience with science and their goals for the class, as well as to share other interests. That allowed them to share directly with me what interested them. Observation is key as well. My students were issued iPads, and noticing their iPad case stickers was a little window into their world. I distinctly remember the year they all discovered anime -- which ended up being a great resource for physical science graphics!

Connecting to real-world issues is more feasible and relevant to the students. To do this, the teachers should equip themselves with abundant general knowledge.

Definitely, when the learning becomes relatable to them, you have their attention. Take letter writing for example, instead of teaching it just like that, we identify challenges in the school and they write in those in mind, with mind blowing results.

Agreed to this but what's about teachers development,it's not possible without focusing on instructor's knowledge regarding current situations.

Some subjects are directly linked to the area world and thing economics is very much about connecting the subject to the real world. There is no part of the course that doesn't relate to real world issues and so it provides constant connections. the problem can be however that young minds have no idea yet of the real world and it's cope and complexity- and that they need to be reading widely. The other part of the process is to give the real world relevance in their lives and futures - learning challenging concepts and dealing with tough issues is more engaging when they see a reason for putting in the effort and commitment.

Students have a tendency to think that their choices and voices are more important than that of others. This may lead to unnecessary friction in the classroom.

Science, particularly the physical sciences, lends itself to integrate math concepts into the curriculum. I've had elementary school students doing relatively simple density calculations not knowing they were actually doing algebra basics. With students whose math skills are lacking, there is much to be learned from the repetition of performing math tasks. For students who have a strong grasp of math concepts, they can see how a particular math skill works in the real world to solve problems in science. Everyone can benefit from a cross-curricular approach.

An example of using integrated multiple disciplines is the underlying concept of literacy in all content areas. As a literacy specialist, my favorite part is that I can tailor content to the interests of the current students. So in a situation where I teach Reading, Writing and World History; I could take strategies taught in reading and let them choose which strategies they felt is best to use in World History to better understand the concepts. Then teach them how to use a strategy from writing in an essay for World History. It’s a perpetual cycle that is very rewarding for students and fun to observe as the teacher. When multiple disciplines are covered students gather a more in-depth mental map of what was taught.

This should be done more by the students than by the teacher. When students are given the liberty to go beyond the curriculum, they will connect a variety of information to what they already know.

I used to ask my graduate and post-graduate students to ask any question about the subject so that I could answer with an "I don't know". This used to energize them to find out various things related to the subject.

When I am in the habit of creating my own tests, instead of using a standardized ones through a department, I will often incorporate an application question or two. The idea behind an application question is to stimulate deeper thought from the student to a new scenario. Here's the new scenario: if one scientist asked another to perform Carbon-14 radioactive dating on a meteor that struck the earth, a student should be able to apply learned facts to this incorrect approach. C-14 dating is used on once-living material (first fact students are taught) and this type of dating is only reliable to about 40,000 years whereas a meteor is certainly much older than that (second fact students were taught).

Celebrate and reflect irrespective of the proportion of contribution so that even those who are reluctant can come out of their shell.

What I have seen working is going beyond the curriculum. When you encourage the students to give examples from their personal experiences, they feel involved with the information they receive. Students should learn the syllabus on their own rather than wait for the teachers to enlighten them. This will give the students enough time to go beyond the curriculum.