5 Easy Ways to improve Student Engagement TODAY

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Hi everyone!

My former principal and I used to attend state meetings, professional development trainings, and a variety of other meetings. Inevitably, I would find myself rolling my eyes or getting frustrated with a speaker and she would tell me "find one thing". We would focus on finding ONE THING that could somehow impact our students. We figured, if we could find ONE THING at every meeting we ever attended, we'd be pretty darn good after some time.

While I take pride in ensuring that teachers I'm working with can find more than just one thing during my trainings, it does serve me well to remember to incorporate a variety of learning structures along with whatever the "big picture" topic of the day is. In fact, each of the strategies I've discussed in the article below I originally learned while attending a Professional Development workshop about another topic, and each of them I use frequently with adult learners in my own trainings.

So for this week's newsletter, I hope you can find "one thing" that impacts you or the students you serve.

As always, if there's anything I can do for you or your colleagues, please don't hesitate to email me at markclements@edunators.com. Focus on learning and be great today!

-Mark

5 ALTERNATIVES TO TRADITIONAL HAND RAISING QUESTION & ANSWER STRATEGIES

Tired of the same 3-4 kids always raising their hands to answer questions in class? Want to get a few more (or even all!) students involved in answering questions? Try some of these and let us know how they go!

1. All stand, sit if….

Example: “Everybody stand up! Now, sit down if you think the solution on the board is correct” or “sit down if you would have agreed with Hamilton’s plan.”

Pros: I love doing this when the students desperately need to move, and they almost always do. No complicated directions, just a chance to stand up and stretch. I always do several in a row as well, starting with something silly, such as “Everybody stand up….now sit down if you can’t wait until lunchtime” or something similar.

It’s great for formative assessment (individual or whole group) and you get much more honest answers than you would if you flipped it by asking “stand up if you think...” since some students will prefer to stay seated and others take the opportunity to stand up no matter what.

Cons: It can be a little tricky to ask anything with a high Depth of Knowledge, since you want all students to respond at once, so it can be a little shallow, although you can deepen it by asking students to “defend” their decision to sit or stand by providing reasoning.

2. Call one, warn one

Example:“Hey Madonna, in two minutes I’m going to ask you to identify figurative language in this paragraph...a review class, figurative language is….” (Two minutes later)“Ok, Madonna, you’re up. Lori you’re on deck, and Peter you’re after Lori.”

Pros: I don’t like “cold calling” students and playing “gotcha” since I feel like it embarasses students who aren’t paying attention or don’t know the answer, and that embarrassment rarely leads to future engagement in my opinion, just hurt feelings. So if I want to hear from specific students, I’ll use this instead and give them a few moments to consider their answer (or look it up, or ask a neighbor, or something else...which is less formative that way but still great engagement). Your kiddos who are ‘on deck’ are always more attentive and you can incorporate higher order thinking questions as well.

Cons: By telling the class specifically who’s getting ready to answer the question, you run the risk of kids “checking out” when they hear it’s not going to be them.

8 CLASSROOM GAMES TO PLAY WITH STUDENTS

We all need to have fun with our students from time to time, so here’s a quick list of some silly ways to get kids up and moving, share some laughs, build some rapport, and if you’re creative, maybe mix in some academic content along the way.

1. Heads or Tails - Ask students to stand up and choose heads or tails (I would make them signal their choice by placing their hands on their head to signal "heads", or on their waste to signal "tails"). Then, flip flip a coin (or let Google do it) and anyone who chose incorrectly must sit. We keep going until there’s only one winner and I always tried to hand out some silly .25 trophy or other prize. I also do this regularly in my professional development workshops. Teachers love it, too.

2. Name that tune - Play a snipped from a song and ask students to correctly name the song title and artist. Play music from their generation occasionally, but mix up genres and eras at random.

3. “Rock-Paper-Scissor” - We’d play in one big group, two lines facing each other until there is only one remaining. Nothing like crowning a “grand champion” of a random game of chance.

4. Rock-Paper-Scissor-Zombie - We’ll also play “Rock-Paper-Scissor-Zombie” where everyone stands and meanders around the room playing at random. When one person is eliminated, they watch the person who eliminated them. If THAT person loses, they come back to life (hence the “zombie”). The only way the game would end is if someone defeats everyone else in the room, consecutively. For fun, ask your students (or math teachers) to calculate the odds of someone actually accomplishing that.