Our students aren’t engaged by things. They’re engaged by us.
That’s why the best ways to increase student engagement come from you.
Connect learning to the real world
We’ve all heard it before: “When am I ever going to use this?” Answer this question and you’ll engage students with content that they know is relevant to life beyond school. Use anecdotes, case studies, and real-life examples from outside the classroom to root your teaching in “the real world”.
Engage with your students’ interests
Find out what already engages your students and build it into the learning process. Using mathematics as an example, you could have students chart their performance in a video game over the week. You might even get your budding social media influencers to calculate a projected number of Instagram followers.
Learning what excites your students does more than just engage them. You’ll build strong relationships and rapport, too.
Fill “dead time”
“Dead time” is any point in a lesson where students are left without something to do. You might be handing out a worksheet, getting a presentation set up, or waiting interminably for a YouTube video to load. These are brief windows that leave just enough time for students to tune out, after which time it can be very difficult to get them back.
Fill these blank spaces with low-order activities to hold students’ attention. These should be quick, easy, and require minimal follow-up. For example:
- 👉🏻Think Pair Share: students reflect on something, discuss with a partner, and then share with the rest of the class once everyone is ready
- 👉🏻Quickwrite: write down three questions or points that have been raised by the lesson so far
- 👉🏻What I know already: if you’re just about to dive into new content, ask students to identify three things they already know about the subject and jot them down as bullet points.
Use group work and collaboration
Collaborating with small groups gives students a welcome break from solo bookwork. They’ll benefit from each other’s perspectives and the ability to verbalize their ideas.
Use your judgment and knowledge of who works well together when organizing group work. Engineering the groups might avoid troublesome partnerships, while allowing students to work with friends might generate the buzz you need for more productive activity.
Encourage students to present and share work regularly
Giving students a regular opportunity to share their thoughts and demonstrate learning in front of their peers drives engagement in two ways:
- 👉🏻it makes students accountable
- 👉🏻it lets them hear from someone other than their teacher.
If your students quiver in fear at the thought of speaking in front of the class, combine presentations with group work. A few ideas:
- 👉🏻Have students present in groups after a group task.
- 👉🏻Let students share each other’s work within smaller groups before asking them to choose one piece to share with the rest of the class.
- 👉🏻Let students read or present their work while sitting down. It avoids the pressure of having to “stand and deliver”.
- 👉🏻Ask for one contribution from each group after discussion, with each group nominating a “spokesperson”.
Above all else, make presenting and sharing a regular part of class activity. Your class will become an equitable and engaging space that echoes with the voice of every student, not just your own!
Gives your students a say
If you don’t know how to engage your students, let them tell you! Give your students a say in classroom activity by:
- 👉🏻providing a choice of different activities (group work)
- 👉🏻seeking student input for assessment design ( students can choose a final product, provided it meets the criteria)
- 👉🏻periodic check-ins to monitor the pace of delivery (“do we need to go over this a bit more slowly or are we feeling pretty confident?”).
Giving students a choice also fosters their sense of ownership over their learning. They’ll move from passive consumers to active learners with a stake in classroom activity.
Get your students moving
If your students struggle to sit still for an entire lesson, get them moving. All that pent-up energy can be channeled into a learning activity that puts them on their feet. Try the following.
- 👉🏻Have students come to the front and brainstorm together on the whiteboard.
- Have students rotate through different stations around the room over the course of an activity.
- 👉🏻Have students split into groups or arrange themselves in different areas of the room.
- 👉🏻Take a stand: have students move to a particular area of the room to indicate their thoughts on an issue “everyone who thinks x, move to the right side of the room; if you think y, stand on the left”.
Movement works equally well to engage sluggish or weary students. A quick bit of physical activity will leave them more alert for the next phase of learning.
