How to use special interests in the classroom

Know your student well – communicate with your student and liaise with parents to identify the student’s focused interests.

After you have identified these special interests, you can:

• embed the student’s interests into curriculum tasks as a whole-class plan
• provide individualised tasks for the student
• use the 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. 

Example

A teacher is attempting to engage a student in a unit of work about modern Japanese culture. As this particular student has a focused interest in trains, the teacher does a lesson on the rail systems in Japan.

Adapting individualised tasks

Using a student’s area of interest does not have to be time-consuming. You can adapt the task to offer choice for the individual student to link it with their area of interest.

Example

In an assignment about Ancient Rome, students are to write a script of an interview between themselves and Julius Caesar. The teacher suggests to the student with a focused interest in Spiderman that they write a script with Spiderman interviewing Julius Caesar.

This example could also work as a whole-class approach – each student could choose their favourite character to be the interviewer.

Motivating students

Use a student’s area of interest to motivate them to complete less-preferred tasks by using the Premack principle. This is where the student 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 the use of an area of interest is helpful and what further adjustments may be needed next time.

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.