5. Students need instruction that is very stimulating. The more stimulating the lesson is - without overstimulation - the stronger the memory response in the brain.

We need to support learning with powerful representations. Research shows that how information is represented can influence enormously how well that information supports understanding performances.
"Teaching for Understanding", David Perkins, American Educator: The Professional Journal of the American Federation of Teachers; (Fall, 1993)

Students learn better when we put our passion for studying History into our teaching.

Students pick up on your energy - or lack of it. If you find something interesting chances are you'll find a way to transmit that interest to your students. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out how to get students to share you interests, but once you find a way to get them involved they'll be hooked!

Your passion can make learning come alive. It can inspire you and your students to go beyond the expected and the ordinary in your class. Passion can help push you to better and better teaching.

There are many students who do not find History innately interesting. Many students have not enjoyed their past experiences in History because their teachers were not able to find a way to make it interesting - too many subjects to cover - with no understanding or personal interest in it. Many teachers don't have the time or resources to do much. History becomes too many names and dates, too cut and dried. Too often teachers present History in a totally bloodless and colourless way.

Many students see all History as a set of pre-determined events, a procession of names and dates. Many teachers approach History this way because it's easy to present what is in the textbook. This is how many teachers had it taught to them. It's easy to do and it keeps History teaching simple. In many cases busy teachers do not have time to obtain any in-depth knowledge beyond the text book's details. That takes the interest and energy out of the subject and gives people a distorted view of the past. When we make decisions today, we do not know what will happen next. Have we made good choices or poor ones? We don't know - and we won't know for years to come. I like to present history in the same way. This brings history alive because the students are interacting with it. They start asking me the key questions because they want to know what to do, or how best to solve a problem.

History has primarily been taught orally and verbally - through reading and listening .Many students respond better to other teaching styles. They need visual or tactile stimulation to learn. Having objects for students to handle, to feel, to smell, as well as to see, hear or read is essential. History should also have emotional appeal - because real life is full of emotion. Displays should not be emotionless, they should promote feelings of pride, fear, uncertainty, anger or horror. Good storytelling can help achieve this, so can effective use of multimedia. Good history teaching, in part, is a theatrical experience, rich in sensory appeal.

Let students learn about native life by facing hands-on challenges - find food in the forest, making tools or building shelters from scratch, trying to hunt using spears or other hand-made methods, starting fires in the ways of ten thousand years ago. Let students figure out how to build Stonehenge, or a pyramid, using scale model materials and videos about the actual sites. Let them "fight" as Greek hoplites, Roman legionnaires and gladiators, medieval knights, and World War One soldiers to see how accurate the movies and novels are. Let them plan attacks on Vimy Ridge and D-Day using maps and information from the time period.