Teachers’ Institute October 2005 Beardstown Energizers

Begin with Groupings, Cow-cowboy The Stare Now…check your mood. Compare it to …lecturing for 10 min.

The Energizer… Like the Anticipatory set but the A.S. is always related to the subject matter. I call it building community and establishing focus… works best on classes that are hard to control. IT PULLS THE CLASS TOGETHER..look where they’ve come from. More than anything else, it puts the sense of fun in learning

Don’t look upon it as a waste of class time. Every minute you spend building a sense of community is well spent. If you’re the type of teacher who has them sit at their desks and work quietly for the entire period, this isn’t for you. But if you’re a good teacher… think: we ask students to come in cold then start responding. Then we wonder why they don’t. These are warm-ups. Some have relevance to the class and most are simply designed to get them involved. Sometimes just a provocative question. Get a Koosh ball.

Research says that the average listener will give the speaker 25 seconds to grab him.

I used to take great care to make sure the Energizer was closely related to the day’s subject matter. Anymore, I don’t worry about it.

And if you decide not to use it, just have fun. I’ve used them for pre-K through college…even at a negotiations session between Caterpillar labor and management. Channel Surfing Great Idea! Cliché That Darned Whistle Word Tennis Sound Circle 3-Some Line Talk Endowments