A little lie goes a long way in the classroom

Ready for a quick quiz? Which shopping bag do you think is the most environmentally friendly: paper, plastic, or cotton?

If you answered "a sturdy plastic bag," congratulations, you're correct! But most likely, you picked cotton or paper, and now find yourself mildly surprised and interested. If so, great! That's what I was aiming for. Which brings us to today's question: What makes things interesting?

The Science of "Interesting"

Back in 1971, Murray Davis published a paper called "That's interesting!" In it, he argued that we find things interesting when they challenge our assumptions. Davis suggested that interesting theories are those that deny some part of our assumed "ground," the taken-for-granted world we think we inhabit.

Sounds good in theory, but does it work in practice? Let's look at two popular science communicators who've mastered the art of being consistently interesting.

The Masters of Intrigue

First up, Malcolm Gladwell. You might know him as the author of the bestsellers "The Tipping Point," "Blink," and "Outliers." Or a recent podcast, he's been dubbed the "Lord of All Things Overlooked and Misunderstood," which I find extremely appropriate. Gladwell takes familiar concepts and turns them on their head, challenging our preconceptions and making us see the world in a new light.

Then there's Derek Muller, the brains behind the popular YouTube channel Veritasium. As a PhD student, Muller found that discussing misconceptions in lectures not only engaged students but also led to higher learning achievement. This discovery propelled him to become one of the pioneers of educational videos on YouTube.

Bringing It to Your Classroom

So, how can you make your lectures more interesting? Let's take plastics manufacturing as an example and walk through some questions you can ask yourself:

1. How does this topic relate to your students' everyday lives?

2. How do you explain your work at dinner parties?

3. Is there a fun fact about plastics manufacturing that might surprise your students?

4. What do people usually get wrong about the topic?

Pro tip: Use AI to help you find common misconceptions. AI models are trained on internet data, which is full of misinformation. This makes them excellent at identifying common misunderstandings!

Once you've got your material, try this: Create a multiple-choice poll with plausible-but-wrong answers. Run it at the beginning of your class and ask students to explain their choices. Boom! You've just created an interesting, engaging start to your lecture and made your students ever so slightly intellectually hungrier for the content that comes next.

So, next time you're preparing a lecture, channel your inner Gladwell or Muller. Find those overlooked angles, address those misconceptions, and watch as your students lean in, eager to learn more. After all, isn't that why we became educators in the first place?

This post and image were created with the help of Claude.ai and ChatGPT.