How to use special interests in the classroom

Know your students well – communicate with them and their parents to identify the student's focused interests.

After you’ve identified these special interests, you can:
•    collaborate with the student around how best to integrate their interest into a class activity or assessment task
•    explore ways to harness the student’s strengths and interests in class and group work
•    embed the student’s interests into curriculum tasks as a whole-class plan
•    provide individualised tasks for the student
•    plan for technology use that supports and promotes the student’s interests
•    use these interests to motivate the student using the Premack Principle.

The Premack Principle is a positive reinforcement strategy where a preferred activity is offered as a reward for the completion of a less preferred task.

Embedding special interests into the curriculum

When planning a lesson, consider which of the student’s interests might be appropriately embedded and how it could be used to engage other students in the class to enhance interaction and learning.

Example
A teacher attempts to engage a student in a unit of work about modern Japanese culture. Because this student has a focused interest in trains, the teacher prepares a lesson on Japanese rail systems.

Adapting individualised tasks

Using a student’s area of interest doesn’t have to be time-consuming. You can adapt an existing task to allow a student or the entire class to link to these areas. Students can also teach their classmates about their interest — encouraging student inquiry, curiosity, and engagement.

Example
In an assignment about Ancient Rome, students must write a script of an interview between themselves and Julius Caesar. The teacher suggests the student with a focused interest in Spiderman writes a script with Spiderman interviewing Julius Caesar.
This example could be used across the class, with each student choosing their favourite character to be the interviewer.

Motivating students

Use the Premack Principle to motivate students to complete less-preferred tasks. Students must complete a less-preferred task to a satisfactory standard to be allowed access to their focused interest.

Make sure you:
•    show the order of tasks
•    clearly describe what the ‘satisfactory standard’ looks like.

Example      
1.    Read all of page 54.
2.    Write a five-sentence paragraph to summarise page 54.
3.    Read The Lord of the Rings for 15 minutes (the student’s preferred activity).

It works better if the teacher:

•    sets a realistic amount of work for the student to complete to access their area of interest
•    allows enough time for the student to engage with their interest after completing the less-preferred task
•    regularly assesses and reviews whether using the area of interest is helpful and what adjustments may be needed.

It doesn’t work if:

•    a focused interest is used to punish the student, e.g. taking away access to the focused interest
•    the teacher changes expectations partway through using the Premack principle – this is likely to increase anxiety and decrease trust.