> Instead, you start with an anecdote This also works in math. Best professor I had, he spent half of the lesson explaining the life and motivations of some m

> Instead, you start with an anecdote This also works in math. Best professor I had, he spent half of the lesson explaining the life and motivations of some mathematician (Riemann, Fourier, Weierstrass, ...), and why he was so obsesed with such and such problem. He surely added a lot of salt and pepper to his story. Then, once everybody was craving for the technical details, he stated the main result and told us just a couple of crucial details in the proof. The complete, formal, proof was given as a handout, and you really worked through it in the afternoon. An unusal teaching method, but very engaging.