Real world connections are some of the most important connections you can make during the school day. We sat in the classroom while we were students wondering, “when am I ever going to use this!?” and some of us still wonder why we learned certain concepts. But, with the students in our classrooms, we can easily connect our subjects to the real world. This will let them see why they are learning certain concepts and give them a little more motivation to learn.
Engage students with real world connections
Importance of real world connection in the classroom
Teachers manage their classrooms in many different ways. Some use marble jars, while others use class or table points.
Almost all subject areas of social studies to science allow for real world connections. Project based learning is an amazing way to get students researching and solving real world problems. There are so many PBL projects available, you’re sure to find one your students will love.
When you bring real world connections into your classroom you are giving your students valuable skills such as:
- Problem solving
- Corporation
- Critical thinking
- And more
When you are looking to help your student connect with the real world, you may want to use different websites to help give your students a leg up when researching or trying to solve the problem. Here are a bunch of different websites I absolutely love to use in my PBL projects, and when I am getting my students to really dive into different real world topics. Teachers are being told to start incorporating online learning into their classroom and these websites are the perfect!
Real World Connections in Math
Some of the best real world connections can be developed during your math block. One of the best ways to really get students to connect their mathematical learning to the real world is to have them develop and solve real world problems.
Have students think of different topics you have learned about throughout your math lessons and discuss how they could use them in real life. They will need to add decimals when grocery shopping, or online shopping. They may need to convert fractions while baking, or convert miles to kilometers if they study abroad in college. There are so many real world connections to be made during math.
I love having my students use Flipgrid or Padlet to share their real world problems. Both of these allow your students to share their problems and other students can solve them. If you decide to use Flipgrid, I often had the students record a second video explaining how to solve the problem on another grid.
Real World Connections in Social Studies
No matter which grade you teach, social studies is a great place to add some real world connections into the curriculum. Teaching students about how our history/geography/culture/etc has shaped who we are today as a people and sharing different experiences with them to help them understand these connections.
Try to use primary sources, news articles, photographs, diaries, etc. to show students information right from the source. Yes, textbooks hold a lot of information, but when a student is able to observe a photograph or read a diary entry they are getting so much more out of the learning experience.
You can also take your class on virtual field trips to places all around the world. Virtualfieldtrips.org has so many different choices and places you can visit. Another great website is kidsshouldseethis.org. It is full of amazing videos which your students will absolutely love watching.
a of playing games to help your classroom feel more like a community, there are tons of options. A quick Google search of “community/team building games” will bring up many different results.
Real World Connections in Science
Make sure your science is as hands-on as possible. You want to lead by example and show kids science is all about getting dirty and learning. It is easy to connect experiments about air pressure, and conduction with the weather, or germs with an article about the flu. Finding examples to connect to is very easy if you look at the overarching topic of your lessons.
A great website is YouTube for science. But specifically the Vox videos. These videos have so many different topics and the goal of each one is to teach students about a specific secret or question. They are engaging and on the shorter side (10 minutes or less) allowing you to have a great discussion or add a hands-on activity to the lesson.
Connections and teaching
When you grow as a professional you have to look at the students around you. Students change year to year and our teaching should also be changing with them. Student’s nowadays want to know more than ever “how will I actually use this?” Giving students the tools and information to show them exactly how different topics and subjects are related to the real world will help them answer that question and get them a little more interested in learning.