How to engage children in the classroom

How to Engage Students in the Classroom

What is student engagement?

(We're not talking about engagement rings and future weddings.)

Student engagement is student participation for optimum learning in the classroom.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take a self-test at the end of this lesson. You will choose those classroom activities that produce more student engagement over those activities that produce less.

This message will not self destruct in 30 seconds. As a matter of fact, you can play it as many times as you want.

There are an infinite number of ways to engage students.

Following are a few samples.

Tell a story and let them retell it.

Let them take a quiz or a test.

Or give a prompt and let them write about it.

Let them role play or dramatize.

Let them make a model.

*Let them type and print.

*Let them play a game.

*Let them draw a picture for others to guess the point.

*Let them make a book.

Click 'Edit' to add text.

Invite experts into the classroom.

Let them dance it.

Let them tell or write their own story about the subject.

Here's a quiz for you.

(The answers are on the next page.)

Which one of these activities provide for the most student engagement?

1. Reading text.

2. Playing a game about the subject.

3. Role playing a story.

4. Singing about the subject.

5. Daydreaming.

These produce more engagement:

2. Playing a game about the subject.

3. Role playing a story.

4. Singing about the subject.

Here's another quiz for you.

(The answers are on the next page.)

Which of these provide for the most engagement?

1. Listening to the teacher.

2. Pantomiming.

3. Drawing about the lesson.

4. Watching and listening to an expert.

5. Copying sentences from the blackboard.

Click 'Edit' to add text.

These produce more engagement:

2. Pantomiming

3. Drawing about the lesson.

4. Watching and listening to experts.