Back to school doesn’t mean back to boredom for students now that educators realize the power of utilizing engagement strategies to increase learning and retention. Here are five tips for increasing student engagement in your classroom this year.
Tip 1: Create a Safe Climate
Learning can be risky business, and no student of any age wants to look stupid in front of his or her peers. Creating an emotionally safe classroom climate allows students to feel safe to experiment, share thoughts, and try out new skills without fear of embarrassment. Brain research suggests that we learn best when we are feeling relaxed and joyful. Students who have been embarrassed or belittled will not effectively engage in challenging tasks. They may exhibit belligerent or withdrawn behaviors as a coping mechanism. Consider having a rule such as “We do not put others down, tell others to shut up, or laugh at anyone.” Then apply that rule to yourself as well as your students.
Tip 2: Cultivate an Active-Learning Environment
When students are actively engaged in their learning, their intrinsic motivation kicks in, and they actually enjoy it. Begin to cultivate an active-learning environment by paying attention to those activities that truly engage the students and plan more like them. Giving the class initial assignments that they can do successfully without your assistance will lead to more independence on more difficult assignments later. Make sure to provide the scaffolding needed for success when planning project-based learning.
Tip 3: Use Safe Questioning Strategies
The age-old practice of the teacher asking a question and waiting for a student to raise his hand to answer lends itself to student inattention. Consider using small group questions where the teacher asks a question and small groups of students discuss the answer before offering their thoughts in front of the whole class. This way every student is engaged in finding the answer instead of zoning out while one student takes the responsibility for dialoging with the teacher.
Tip 4: Connect Projects to Students’ Interests
How many times have you heard the question, “Why do we have to learn this?” Be ready with the best answer possible. Great projects incorporate authentic tasks that will help students in their lives, jobs or relationships. By gearing the projects and examples to the students’ real life interests and challenges you are increasing their interest and engagement in the topic.
Tip 5: Take Time for Student Reflection
Japanese teachers highly value the last five minutes of class as a time for summarizing, sharing, and reflecting. Students can either write in a journal or share their thoughts orally in a group. You can focus the discussion on key learnings, challenges that were faced, how well students interacted during the class period or next steps. You can use this approach to guide future lessons and activities.
Make this the year that you banish boredom from your classroom by implementing these five tips for increasing student engagement, learning, and retention!
