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We’re close to the beginning of a new school year. We’re facing the new reality that we’ll have to accept. Schools are going to introduce new protocols. UNICEF posted an elaborate article explaining: what will the return to school look like during the COVID-19 pandemic? The schools will reopen when it’s safe for students to attend them. Across many countries around the world, that doesn’t seem like an option right now.
Even if the schools open, the students will have to keep their distance, wear masks, and stick to the preventive instructions. Nothing will be as it used to be.
This brings us to a concept whose importance we’ve been emphasizing for quite some time: entertainment in education, or so-called edutainment. At this point, the students lack the most entertaining aspect of schooling: friendships. The teachers will have to make up for that.
What Is Educational Entertainment?
The edutainment method is organized in a way that both educates and entertains students at the same time. Through powerful storytelling and hands-on activities, the teacher grabs the students’ attention. The learners glide through the material without even realizing that they are learning important lessons.
In the online environment, the edutainment method is driven through compelling narratives and deep student engagement. The teachers present various situations and characters to bring the most boring concepts to life.
Why Is Edutainment Important Today?
1.) The Students Must Understand that Education Is Not Boring
In the traditional educational system, the students fail to learn as much as they could. They get countless assignments that have to be completed by strict deadlines. Even if the essay is on a fun topic, they find the format boring. When the students get stuck, they turn to a helpful site with essays on entertainment or any other topic that they need to cover. They seek solutions because they cannot force themselves to like this system as it is.
Learning could be fun, but the educator has to make an effort to get the lessons to such a level. Students are young, bright, and full of energy. Instead of forcing them to calm their spirits down, we could use their enthusiasm to make them fall in love with learning.
2.) This Method Improves the Communication between Teachers and Students
Entertaining lectures position the teachers as more human. The students are allowed to laugh, comment, discuss different matters, and engage with the lectures in other ways. This makes them more comfortable, so they can ask the teacher about anything they are interested in.
Instead of turning to their parents or to online resources, the students can get clarifications as soon as they are confused about something in the lecture.
3.) Fun Learning Improves the Student’s Information Retention
When the teachers rely on games, video and audio materials, and activities that the students find entertaining, they support improved memory retention. Through this process, the learners are encouraged to think for themselves. They aren’t just sitting in class and listening. They take notes, ask questions, and come to conclusions.
Through fun-filled activities, the students remember more of what they figured out.
4.) Edutainment Keeps Students Excited about School
Let’s say the teacher is giving a lecture on English vocabulary and grammar. If it’s presented in a traditional way, only a fraction of the students will find it engaging. The other ones will be bored. They will want to talk to their peers, draw in their notebooks, or simply wander away with their thoughts. Will they be excited about tomorrow’s school activities?
Another teacher does her best to bring a sense of excitement to the same lecture. She gets the students to play a drama with dialogues. The other students are divided in groups, discussing the grammar mistakes in the dialogues. The group that identifies the most mistakes wins. They will also talk about the new vocabulary.
It’s easy to understand that the edutainment approach will make the students more excited about upcoming classes.
We Can Do This!
Educational entertainment is not a new concept. It’s been researched for years as a better alternative to traditional education based on lecturing.
We should stop seeing students as robots, who come to school with the intention to learn. They get distracted, and that’s not their fault. It’s the teacher’s responsibility to get their attention and inspire them to learn.
Now that we have to give them online lectures, the need for infusing some fun in the educational process is greater than ever.
BIO: Elizabeth Skinner is a blogger with a great interest in education. She inspires teachers from all around the world to get out of the traditional box and explore new methods of lecturing. If we make the process fun, students will fall in love with learning.
