- Hey, teachers, you ready
to hear 10 tips, strategies and activities to increase
student engagement in under 10 minutes? Okay, great, let's get started. Number one, add variation
into your teaching. Keep your lessons and activities
interesting and engaging by adding in, mixing in
different hands on activities, videos, images and music. Teaching in all these different
ways helps your students because classrooms are
filled with students who all learn a little bit differently. So incorporate visual,
kinesthetic, reading, writing and auditory styles into your material. Hands on activities allow
for students to get up and moving around the classroom. Try using different
manipulatives, gallery walks or other activities for them to learn and share their knowledge. Showing students an image or a video clip to introduce a topic or share
and learn more about a topic can help them make those
connections visually. Show students a clip or an image. Give them some time to
think, react, respond and have them write down their responses or they can submit them via ClassPoint then go ahead and discuss as a class. See if anyone took away the
same things in that video. Edpuzzle is one great
tool that you can use to have students watch a video and quiz them throughout the clip. Lastly, try incorporating sounds and music into your classroom. This can be used for a lot
more subjects than you think. For example, languages and
different pronunciations can be listened to. - [Woman] Hello.
- [Man] Hola. - Different noises in nature for science and for social studies, different music in different time periods and cultures. You can even have your
students analyze the lyrics so they can get clues to what
was going on in that song or during that time
period that it was made. One, two, three. Eyes on me. Tip number two is callbacks. As a classroom management strategy, create attention with routine callbacks. These call and respond
tools signal to students that it's time to turn
around, face the front, listen to instructions and start learning. Getting students to
focus is the first step of student engagement. So if you want students to focus on you, use techniques that
capture their attention. Side note, use enthusiasm. Students will definitely
match your energy. Use callbacks like one,
two, three, eyes on me that are both enjoyable and effective in capturing students' attention. At the beginning of the year, teach students the words to respond with when you say a certain phrase. You can start with just a couple. Make sure you use the same tone of voice and then you can go
ahead, mix in some others to keep students on their toes. Additionally, use routine physical signals and good body language. For example, you can hold
your hand up to your ear if you want students to speak up or you're waiting for a response. These callbacks are a simple
but fun and effective way to get students refocused and energized and engaged on what's next. Number three, make content
relatable to students. More specifically, integrate pop culture and student interests
right into your lesson. Mix in videos, social media, music and ed tech tools that are
made for digital natives to help teach your lessons. Do this at the beginning of a lesson to get students hooked right away and interested in the learning objectives. For example, use song
lyrics or a music video to not only have that become
more relatable and memorable but to give students
a chance to understand perspective and impact or you can have students use social media to find out more information about a topic or share what they know
and have already learned. On Instagram, students can
put together a photo essay to tell stories in a different way. In general, if you can
relate your concepts to students in real life situations, they will form emotional connections to all of those concepts. Students can complete a
personal narrative or a write up on how that topic and idea
relates to real life situations. You're going to be the most successful if you find out what your
students' actual interests are. If they like games, find out which ones and use that in your classroom or just pull game elements from that into your different
lessons and activities. Gamification. Which does bring us to number four, add gamification into your classroom. There are a ton of
game-based learning tools and games that can be used
to engage your students and teach them differently. Main gamification elements
like badges, point systems, leaderboards and levels
can be used and implemented in your classroom and
in your grading system. Competitions that include
all of these elements not only get students motivated
and enjoying the class but they also have students learn and test their knowledge at the same time. For specific examples on
implementing these elements, check out the video linked
above and down below. Besides elements of games,
you can also use physical and digital games into your classroom. So incorporating games
like bingo vocab or Yahtzee or even the digital games like Microsoft for
Education, Bamboozle, IXL or any others that you
find can all be implemented to engage students in a new way. Number five, let students make choices. Provide students with
the choices to choose how and even what they're learning. If students have a say in their learning, they become more intrinsically motivated. When available and possible, allow students to choose what
they're going to be learning. So this could be topics
for the next project or the choice between two
different topics for the next unit and have students choose
how they want to complete what they're learning. So this could be the project medium, video, writing or drawing or even how they want to be assessed and if they have partners or not. You could even offer flexible seating and have students choose where they sit. When students have a say in
these educational decisions, they're going to have, take on more responsibility in the outcome and can be motivated to try their best. Number six, conduct all-participation student response activities. These kinds of activities
include the whole entire class, not just those who raise their hand and the easiest way to accomplish this is with student assessment tools. So ed tech tools like ClassPoint allow you to get instant responses
from all of your students right inside your PowerPoint presentation but even Google and Microsoft Forms can be used to get responses
and looked at later. For non-tech tools, try dry erase boards or hand signals like
thumbs up, thumbs down to gauge where each
student's understanding is. These activities keep each
and every one of your students actively engaged and
participating in the lesson, not just those in the front row. Use these same student assessment
tools for number seven, assess students early and often. Before a new unit or
a topic is introduced, give students a pretest. Find out what they know and
adjust the lesson accordingly then throughout your lesson, always check for students' understanding to number one, keep them engaged and interacting with you and the material and number two, to gauge
their comprehension. At the end of a lesson or a unit, use exit tickets or conduct
formative assessments. Assessing students'
knowledge gives you insights on your teaching and
students' learning abilities but also gives students the chance to check and see their
progress moving forward. Another way they can engage their progress is if you give students a post-test. Make it similar to the pretest so that they can really see
how much they've accomplished and they can take that
sense of accomplishment into the next unit. Okay, we're getting there. Number eight, encourage
student collaboration. Students learn from each other just as much as they learn from you. Aside from group projects,
students can also collaborate during the downtime of classes. Instead of having students
silently wait patiently while you're handing out papers or getting a video queued up, students can complete a
think, pair, share activity with the person next to them or you can have them write
down what they already know about an upcoming topic and then go ahead and share
it with their neighbor. This time for collaborating allows students to take a focus break while still staying checked into class. Plus, students learn
more from the material when they collaborate. They learn life skills
when they're sharing and navigating different research, notes and thoughts with their peers. Speaking of breaks without
checking out of class, number nine, take brain breaks. These are quick exercises or activities that allow students to let go of some of the extra energy
they have pent up to do when they've just completed
a really challenging concept or to just take a simple
break from the norm. In the middle of your class, just take a nice pause and do
something fun and unexpected. You can try singing a quick song, doing a one minute drawing of the lesson, getting a beach ball and
bouncing it around class but not letting it touch the bottom or even doing a freeze dance party. You can play some music, have
students show you their moves but encourage them to freeze
when the music is stopped. It might take a moment
for students to calm down after the activity but once they do, they'll be refocused, re-energized and ready to be productive. And lastly, number 10, incorporate interactive teaching tools and activities into the classroom. Make in-class activities, assignments and projects more engaging for students by using these tech devices and tools. iPads, computers, tablets
and phones can all be used for students to have their
own digital whiteboard, create their own presentations and even practice new
concepts with quiz games. If not enough devices are available, students can team up and
complete activities together which is a double boost of engagement. If you remember number
eight, student collaboration. There are an abundance of tools out there for you guys to use. There's tools for classroom management, tools for designing, tools
for practicing new skills. You name it, there's a tool for it. So we've gone ahead and
rounded up our favorite here. Whew, we did it. 10 tips, tools and strategies
all under 10 minutes. For more tips on how
to engage your students on ed tech specifically, here's a video you guys can check out. Also, don't forget to
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