Making School Work Engaging

Making boring school work engaging

“School is so boring.”  I hear this all the time from our students in our Student Mastery Program, as well as those that we tutor or provide test prep.   Nonetheless, there are several ways that boredom can be beaten.  I will share one in this article.

QuizUp is a I-phone app.  It provides quizzes on topics ranging from TV shows to great literature.  There are a surprising number of topic areas related to history, literature, math, and science – basically the content that is “so boring” to students across Connecticut schools.   Even more surprising, a large number of high school students in Shoreline Connecticut play QuizUp.

Why?  The answer reveals one of the ways our Student Mastery Program has shifted students: we make boring school work more fun through creating artificial intensity. That’s a long, theoretical way of saying, “we make it more fun”.

The app compels the player to answer questions in a timed setting, either against yourself, or against other QuizUp users throughout the world.   The latter is what seems to make the app so popular.  I found it fascinating to be battling someone in England or  California or in a different part of Connecticut in a trivial pursuit type of game.

More to the point, the format – short, timed, quizzes – creates an intense atmosphere.   It makes school a game.   When we work with our students, we do the same.  We make test preparation fun or at least as fun as possible.