Edutainment: injecting entertainment into learning

Edutainment – good word or bad? Well, it depends on whom you talk to.

The 1950s teaching style of “˜sit down, shut up and learn’ was how it was. Kids learned and absorbed information because they didn’t have as many things going on as today. Teachers now need to compete in a visual world by grabbing their attention, and engaging kids in a way that they want to learn. How about starting off with a little bit of entertainment and almost sneaking the learning in.

Imagine this. The teacher shows up with three cups in her hand. She fills one with water, moves the cups around and asks the students to point to the one with the water. Their observation skills come out tops each time. Then, all three cups are completely empty. The water has vanished. How? The kids now inch forward to find out. It’s the secret ingredient in a baby’s diaper – and a perfect lead-in for an entire world of polymers – those self-absorbent polymers we now find in gardening products.

Magicians don’t unveil their secrets. Science teachers say: “come closer and I will reveal how it is done”?. Now that’s edutainment.

Listen to my podcast on edutainment

(File size is 1.2 MB) (Show length 4 minutes 46 seconds)