Affective engagement has been my most effective engagement in teaching. While teaching, I tried to make my lessons connect to my students' lives to prompt students' interest (Muhammad, 2020). By making connections, I needed to plan my lessons carefully and sometimes make impromptu decisions. Thankfully, most of my ideas seem to have been received with warmth and excitement by the students. That being said, some of my ideas didn't work as well, such as offering candy as a mode of motivation. This "failure" could have been affected by the students' moods of the day and the way I offered the candy. Looking back on my lessons, I was mostly able to engage my students affectively.

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Which techniques worked well:

• Using games as introductions to a lesson

• Connecting course content to students' interests

• Using tools that students enjoy when creating projects

 

What I could work on next:

• Although I sometimes come up with ideas that could work, I noticed that my creativity decreases as I teach for long periods of time. I am working on making an idea-collection and documenting ideas I have to make my lessons more interesting for future use. 

• While "using games as introductions" was received with much excitement, I could have made it more purposeful by asking the students to share why they create certain patterns. Next time, I will lead this section into a discussion, learning more about what they think and know of the subject at hand.