Use Novelty and Surprise!
There must be a good mix of novelty and ritual. Jensen makes the point in his lectures that if you have too much novelty and not enough ritual, you will have chaos. If you have too much ritual and not enough novelty, you may produce boredom.
There are innumerable ways to introduce novelty into the learning environment. If you are comfortable, you can do things like wear a costume to introduce an historical character or a specific period in history. You can use props, magic tricks, unusual objects, etc. to introduce novelty.
Surprise can also be used in various ways. Even picking who will go first in an activity can be an occasion for novelty and surprise. For example, if you have students number off one through five, usually number one would start. Try starting with number three. The same thing with choosing partners. After deciding which partner will be A or B, the usual choice to go first would be "A." Surprise! Have "B" go first!
To pick a volunteer, start with the person who has the most green on, then take the person to his right. Or pick the person with the most jewelry. Or throw a ball around while playing music -- when the music stops, the person holding the ball answers the question.
This category is infinite. Try having sound effects to accentuate something in the lecture. Have a mystery bag, a puzzle to solve, a secret of the day, something hidden in the room, have students do a drum roll on their desks every time a new overhead is revealed, etc.
The whole notion of this state change is to have fun. Do something you ordinarily wouldn't do, and do it intentionally. Don't sing much? Try singing! Have fun. Loosen up. What's the worst that could happen? You may look a little silly, but you can handle that, because you know that current research is behind novelty and surprise!
Another way to use novelty and surprise is to have "open loop" questions and statements. For example, you could tell your students something along the lines of, "One of the greatest mysteries of mankind is what was found in a pyramid almost a century ago. And that mystery is... the first thing we'll start with tomorrow morning."
Excerpted with permission from
The Missing Ingredient: State Changes and Energizers for your Classroom.
© 2002 Gerard Evanski. All rights reserved.
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