Ten Steps to Better Student Engagement

In an era where teachers must compete with video games, computers, texting, cell phones, social networking, and STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENTS it is increasingly more difficult to maintain the interest of students. The article offers 10 steps that would better enagage our students. Project based classrooms that promote active-learning in a non threatening environment tend to foster active, authentic, student engagement. Safe classrooms are a key component to this success. Students need to feel safe enough to take risks. They need to know that they will not be ridiculed by classmates as well as the teacher. The environment must also offer challenging, complex tasks that allow students to excel as well as help each other. I work hard to set up such an environemnt for my students. I practice many of the steps referenced in the article in my clasroom but admit that there are times I fall short. Mr. Frondeville, the author of the article, discusses the importance of journal or blog writing and that is an area that I freely confess to as one of my shortcoming. Time and transitions are such a factor when servicing many different grade levels and rarely do I find the time to allow my students to reflect on their learning in writing. Many times the oral reflections are fairly rushed. Monitoring the time with a timer is a must for me.

Student engagement is promoted when students are given the opportunity to explore big ideas through essential questioning. Essential questions have no simple "right answer;" they are meant to be argued and discussed. Good questioning strategies that require all students to respond, in all modalities, promotes student engagement. In my classroom, students use a response wheel to signal their response. They also use the thumbs-up/down/sideways to show their response.