What do you remember most about from your time in school? For me, it is definitely the hands-on fun projects, not the research papers and boring worksheets. All students have different learning styles so for a majority of them they will not learn to their highest potential if they are not interacting with their work. I am a kinesthetic learner so interacting with my work is how I learn the best, so some students will learn how I do but others will learn more visually, or auditorily.
Imagine you are teaching elementary students and you are teaching them the different parts of a cell. Usually to learn the parts we give them a fill in the blank worksheet that they rush through and then they don’t remember the parts later on during the assessment. If you changed the assignment and have the students create the cell either out of playdough or food the students will not only have fun learning about the cells, but they will have an easier time remembering the needed information.