This document provides suggestions from a student on ways to make learning more relevant and engaging for students. It suggests that teachers tell stories from their own experiences, invite professionals to speak, discuss current events, facilitate interactions between students at different universities, start online discussions before class, assign group projects to solve real-world problems, and use hypothetical situations to show practical applications. The overall goal is to help students make connections between course content and the real world.

1. Ways to Make
Learning Relevant
to Your Students
Student Voices: Part 2
10

2. Welcome to Student Voices
Student Voices is a three-part series that explores students’
views on the current state of the classroom and areas for
potential change.
We hope you find their ideas refreshing,
thought-provoking, and encouraging.

3. Engaging and analytical
conversation provides
important intellectual
interactions.
Jeremy Chow, a student at Gonzaga University, explores
ways in which the 21st century classroom can be more
relevant, engaging, and connected to the real world.
“
”

4. Tell Me a Story
The situation:
It’s best to read and complete
assignments before class, but
students often find it hard to
connect course content to the
real world.

5. Tell Me a Story
What can you do:
1. Tell students actual stories from
your own background, career path,
and work experience.
2. Invite a variety of professionals to
speak to your class. These in-person
talks will help students link course
content to real-life careers.

6. The situation:
Students are looking for ways
to apply what they learn in
class to real-world situations.
Keep It Current

7. What you can do:
3. Ask students to pair up
and talk about current events
to spark further classroom
discussion and participation.
4. Engage in lively debates
about today’s topics to broaden
students’ perspectives of the
world around them.
Keep It Current

8. Campus Connections
The situation:
With modern technology, it’s
possible to interact with students
and instructors from other colleges
or universities. However, this
capability often goes untapped.

9. Campus Connections
What you can do:
5. Skype®
can facilitate weekly
meetings with students from other
colleges or universities who are
taking the same class.
6. Collaboration between students
at different schools allows them
to bounce ideas off of each other
and analyze similar material at the
same time.

10. The situation:
The use of technology in the classroom
is on the rise with the integration of
such digital devices as iPads and SMART
Boards. However, students want even
more technology in their courses.
Technology-Enhanced
Communication

11. What you can do:
7. Start a discussion on Blackboard®
,
another Learning Management System
(LMS), or a publisher-provided system
the evening before class. Students can
prepare to discuss the topic with their
peers in class the next day.
Technology-Enhanced
Communication

12. The situation:
Students enjoy learning in groups
and would like more opportunities
to work peer-to-peer.
All Together Now

13. What you can do:
8. The whole class takes on one project to
either solve a problem for the college or
university or an outside organization.
9. Engage students as a team to create an
environment that is more similar to life
after graduation.
10. Take hypothetical situations and make
them relevant and practical so that students
can apply these scenarios to everyday life.
All Together Now