As classroom teachers, one of the many challenges we face is student engagement. With the changing landscape of education, how do we keep students focused and provide them with a foundation to learn our varied subject areas?
There are many ways to tackle this question and no right response. But in my experience, I’ve found that these eight strategies can help maximize student engagement in the classroom:
- Plan and Teach with Enthusiasm
- Build and Maintain Relationships
- Optimize Your Classroom Set-Up
- Promote Active Learning
- Build Your Students’ Capacity to Complete Tasks
- Capture Their Attention From the Beginning
- Make Your Lessons as Relevant and Fun as Possible
- Review and Revamp
After reading this post, you will be able to employ steps that can immediately impact your ability to engage students, assist teachers with student engagement, and see an overall positive impact within CTE curriculum areas.
What Is Student Engagement?
Before we begin, let’s define student engagement. According to Merriam-Webster, engagement is defined as the act of engaging, which is to draw favorable attention or interest.
For our purposes, we are going to say that student engagement is the ability for a teacher to draw the attention or interest of students for the sake of learning.
So how do you do that? Let’s look closer at eight steps you can take to keep your learners interested!
1. Plan and Teach with Enthusiasm
The first step is to begin with yourself. As teachers, we set the tone for the educational experience that our students are going to have.
We can liken this to a spark and a fire. It only takes a small spark to light a fire. We are to be the spark to ignite their passion for learning.
This starts with how we plan. You must believe in your ability as a teacher to create or find engaging lessons. You also must believe that the students are going to enjoy the lessons and can do the required work. If you do not think the lesson is a good one or will be effective, neither will your students.
Students feed off of your enthusiasm. This enthusiasm will come across in your planning but must really take off with how you implement the lesson.
Does this mean you have to put on a dog and pony show? No, not necessarily. But it does mean that your authentic joy and happiness will shine through your teaching.
Again, if you don’t believe in the lesson neither will your students. The lesson could benefit them in their learning now or in the future. Either way, hook them with your excitement.
2. Build and Maintain Relationships
Relationships are the key to everything that we do in education. They form the foundation upon which all other work is built.
John Maxwell and Theodore Roosevelt are both attributed with the quote, “Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
This sentiment is so true. Students should know that you care for them as individuals and are trying to help them reach their dreams and goals, even beyond what they can see now. As a result, they will give the effort and energy to match it.
This process begins with something as simple as remembering students’ names and how they are pronounced. It is said that a name is the most important thing to a person. It encompasses all they are. The same is true for students.
Beyond that, it is critical to learn about who your students are, including their skills, their interests, their dreams, and their goals. Incorporating these things into lessons and activities is a way to help keep them engaged. Checking on them often and attending their extracurricular activities such as sporting events, chorus concerts, or award ceremonies can go a long way toward showing you care.
3. Optimizing Your Classroom Set-Up
As simple as it sounds, the way that your classroom is set up can hinder or aid in classroom engagement. Student desks and workstations can be arranged to facilitate learning.
This can be as simple as arranging tables for partner activities such as Think, Pair, Share. Or you can opt for a more complex layout and arrange students into strategically organized work groups. Desks can even be arranged to allow you to circle the classroom to provide feedback and interaction with the students while they are working.
Some classrooms do not have the luxury of an adjustable set-up, so you will have to get creative. For example, there are picture light covers that you will see in certain health care and dental facilities. Covering flat ceiling lights with pictures of galaxies or clouds can provide additional stimuli to help students stay engaged.
4. Promote Active Learning
Active learning is a simple concept where the students themselves are participants in the learning process.
Spurring students to be actively engaged is important. Some of this is a continuation of building and maintaining relationships, while the rest of it hinges upon facilitating learning and instruction.
Students do not always know how the material is going to help or benefit them. Sometimes they must be reminded of these things.
To further promote active learning, consider incorporating these practices into your instruction:
- Call on students to be involved
- Use skills students have demonstrated in class
- Incorporate skills you noticed students have already mastered
For example, students that are always trying to disrupt the class, whether by making jokes or constantly talking can be encouraged to use that energy in a positive way. These students can serve as speakers for group activities, or they can lead a lesson.
Another example is the leaders in your classroom. If you can encourage them to help you during a lesson, they can assist you in bringing the rest of the class on board.
5. Build Your Students’ Capacity to Complete Tasks
Building students’ capacity means that you are building the ability for them to complete tasks or work on their own within your classroom. They may not have all the answers or know what to do all the time, but building their capacity means they have the means and resources to seek assistance, find answers, and finish assignments.
One such strategy is the “Three before Me” concept. Students are to consult with three other learners to see if they can get their questions answered before they come to me as the teacher. Before incorporating this activity, model it for your students. Once they’ve practiced, it can be very effective in cultivating students’ abilities to learn on their own and can be used in practically every instructional situation.
6. Capture Their Attention from the Beginning
It has been said that you only have seven seconds to grab someone’s attention. If this is true, then we must maximize our first few seconds at the beginning of class.
One way that we can grab students’ attention in the classroom is by using bell ringers. Bell ringers are nothing more than activities that students will begin working on as soon as they enter your classroom.
Learners can answer an essential question or review questions. They can respond to writing prompts, pre-thoughts about new content, and more. With the students working as soon as they enter your room it gives you a launching pad from which to facilitate the rest of the amazing lesson that you have designed.
7. Make Your Lessons as Fun and Relevant as Possible
Relevancy is so important to engaging students. This is not easy for every type of content or lesson, so you may have to use some creativity to connect with your students.
If you’ve been working on your relationship with our students, you’ll have an idea of some of the things which interest them. You can incorporate that into the lessons that you create. For example, a marketing promotion lesson could incorporate your students’ love of soccer. Students can create a promotional campaign for their favorite soccer team and or player. You can use this strategy for activities as well as projects.
In addition, think about how you can incorporate learning games into your classroom. Teachers can use games through platforms such as Kahoot, Quizziz, and more. You can give students the option to create their own games as well.
Lastly, be sure to continually promote lessons by informing students of how the lesson is going to benefit them now and in the future.
8. Review and Revamp
After you’ve completed a lesson or unit, review that lesson with your students. Receive and accept their input about the lesson. This can be done informally by simply asking questions. Or it can be done through a set of questions like a survey.
Consider questions such as:
- What did they like about the lesson?
- What do they think can be improved?
- What would they do about it differently?
Getting students’ input helps create buy-in for future lessons. This is especially true when students can see that their input is being utilized.
Boost Engagement in Your CTE Classroom
There is no silver bullet to remedy student engagement. There are, however, strategies that we can use to help our cause. The previous eight strategies will provide you with a great starting point. They are simple yet effective strategies you can implement no matter where you are in your professional educational journey to increase how engaged our students are.
When you’re successful, you’ll see an increase in more than just engagement. Your program will benefit from improved attendance, test scores, and even certification numbers.
Do you want to take the next step in enhancing student engagement in your CTE program? Download your free guide!
You’ll discover even more recommendations for improving student engagement and inspiring your students!
