Share your thoughts on the importance of student engagement in the classroom. Then, tell us one technique that you use to engage students in your particular classroom.
posted by Brady Kelso @ 10:24 AM
I've taught English in San Diego City Schools for the past 25 years. I've taught at Mann Middle School, Serra High School, Muirlands Middle School, Lincoln High School, and Crawford High School. I currently teach English to freshmen and seniors at Scripps Ranch High School. I developed and taught English Methods for twenty years at San Diego State University before "retiring" in 2004.
2 Comments:
Student engagement is extremely important in the classroom. I know that when my students are engaged in the lesson, that they are learning and interested in what they are doing. The same goes for me as a teacher, when I am engaged in classes, I too tend to participate more and do better on my work. When I am not engaged, I look for other things to focus my attention. My students are the same way in class. When they are not engaged, my classroom management becomes harder to deal with. My students look for things to do because they are bored with the activity.
To counteract this, one technique that I use to engage my students is to include them in the lesson. When they participate, they get checks on their name, (I explain about putting my students’ names on the board for on task behavior in the third reflection). When my students participate, by answering questions, volunteering to read passages, asking questions, etc. they get a check by their name. Every check counts as a dollar when I pay them. One time I had a student get 15 checks by their name (which is a lot for one day). Typically they get between 4-8 on a regular day. To keep their engagement, I will sometimes throw in a bonus question that might be worth 10 checks if they answer it correctly. For those students that at least attempt the question, I might give them 5 for trying.
This technique of having my students earn class money for their participation has worked extremely well. I have been very pleased to see my students wanting to participate because they see their hard work paying off, literally! This is one technique that I will continue to use next year as well.
Student engagement is a must in any lesson. It doesn’t matter what or how you are teaching, if students are not actively engaged in the lessons, they won’t learn anything. Yes, some of the responsibility rests on the student and his/her ability to pay attention, but the teacher is also responsible for promoting student engagement in his/her lessons. It’s probably impossible to have 100% engagement 100% of the time--lord knows I often find myself daydreaming at times when it might be seen as ‘rude’ or ‘inappropriate.’ But, there are some things that I do to keep the daydreaming (best case scenario) and the acting-out (most common scenario) to a minimum.
This first thing is to plan interesting lessons. I’ve seen kids do worksheets while carrying on a completely separate conversation, or doing their make-up, etc. If my lessons are interesting (and they aren’t always), I know that my students are more likely to be engaged in the lesson. While planning my lessons I often ask myself, ‘would I enjoy this?’ If then answer is no, I try to play with it until the answer is at least ‘maybe if I was bored.’
I would like to talk about two specific things that I have done to increase student engagement. Number One: Always give students something meaningful to do, and tell them why they are doing it. Example: “Groups need to take notes on each other’s presentation because you are going to be responsible for all the information in tonight’s homework/tomorrow’s test. This leads me to number two: Always make them responsible for their work. NOTE: this does not mean you have to collect and grade every piece of crumpled-up paper they produce. This can be by having them report back to the whole class, or compose a simple exit slip they turn in before they leave (which is perfect because you can just glance at them, get what you need, and throw them away. They don’t know what you do with them, and they never ask for them back).
I find that doing these two things consistently makes the students feel responsible to me for what they are supposed to be doing, rather than the other way around, and it gives them a reason to be engaged in the lesson.
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