Dos
1. Speak with the teacher ahead of time
a. You’ll need to be aware of the number of students, the length of the period, what the teacher has been covering in class, the level of the student, etc.
2. Encourage the students to ask questions
a. Even if your answer is “I don’t know”, they’ll respect you for your honesty and truly believe everything else you have to say.
b. You might be surprised at how insightful some of their questions might be.
3. Ask questions of the students
a. They’ll often respond if you ask them a question directly.
b. They’ll feel far more involved if they are allowed to bring personal experiences into the discussion.
4. Relate anything possible to real world situations
a. Be mindful of your audience, this is the generation that doesn’t remember a world without the internet or cell phones. Things that seem exciting to us can be ordinary to someone so technologically savvy.
b. Think about what interested you as a teenager and try to relate those things to your topic.
5. Use laymen’s terms
a. You’ll be surprised at how little some of their vocabularies are. They may ask questions at first, but too many big words will make them feel stupid and then they shut down. It’s better to choose not to listen than to listen and still not understand.
6. Bring hands on activities for the students to perform
a. The average attention span is around as many minutes as your age (that mean 12-17 minutes for middle to high school aged).
b. These students often don’t believe it unless they see it (even then, you’d be surprised at how they try to rationalize unexpected findings).
7. Consider safety
a. Whatever you plan to give them, remember that you are arming 30 teenagers with that item and there is only one of you. Know where safety materials you may need are located and don’t bring in anything more dangerous than you have to.
8. Be yourself
a. Kids can smell a phony a mile away and will not take you very seriously if you seem fake or too lofty. Let them see you are a real person, let them into your world a little, and they’ll follow what you have to say far more closely.
Don’ts
1. Assume any materials will be present at the classroom
a. The sad truth is most schools have far fewer materials than they should. Not only do you need to consider any equipment for an activity that you are presenting, don’t assume there will be an LCD projector, internet access or even a computer.
2. Lecture
a. You have to get students to have a stake in what you are presenting, that can’t happen if you are lecturing.
b. Look at the audience from time to time to see if they are still with you, better to cover less material well than to cover a ton of it poorly.
3. Use words bigger than 3 syllables without an explanation
a. Teenagers dislike feeling stupid and rarely will do anything to admit that they are (like ask what a word means when they don’t know it).
4. Try to cover all of biotechnology in one class period
a. Teenagers can rarely remember more than 2-3 new pieces of information in a given session.
b. Reiterate often, the more they hear it, the more likely they’ll remember it later.
5. Expect everything to run just like you’d envisioned
a. Anything that can go wrong, probably will.
b. Teenager’s brains don’t work like ours so it’s hard to always see things through their eyes. Don’t be afraid to change your plan if things aren’t working or go in an entirely new direction.