In teaching today, having students stay engaged with the teacher’s instruction is very crucial. Engaging instruction can help turn the situation in a classroom in seconds through effective engagement strategies (Himmele & Himmele, 2017). Everyone has a time where they have at least a difficult class throughout their academic years. For example, the teacher only does lectures, reads out of the textbook, or disregards any input from the students. As teachers, it is easy to observe the lack of interest in the classroom. While this behavior is harmful to the classroom environment, it is also difficult to correct. All of this goes back to getting students to engage in instruction (Himmele & Himmele, 2017). The key to effective teaching is to have the right activities and assignments that spark interest in the students and make them want to learn more. Engaging instruction helps support learning by putting the student in charge of their learning because they focus more in class, practice critical thinking skills, develop important learning experiences, and practice the concepts in order to succeed in the course. In addition, engaging instruction helps support classroom management because the students become more organized and behave appropriately. In a classroom that is well-managed, the content taught by the teacher allows students to retain more information resulting in better grades on quizzes, tests, and assignments (Milner et al., 2019). While it is challenging to come up with alternative methods to draw the students’ attention, engaging instruction is important to provide a memorable learning experience to both student and teacher.
There are a lot of techniques, approaches, and strategies I will use in my future classroom to engage my students. It is not ideal to limit myself to use only a particular strategy on my students as each of my students is different from each other (Milner et al., 2019). One approach is to use group work and get students to collaborate because it allows the students to listen to different perspectives and get them to talk about their perspectives (Himmele & Himmele, 2017). Getting students to share their thoughts and demonstrate their knowledge allows students to hear from someone else other than me, the teacher. If a student is scared of talking in front of the class, then I can have the students present in groups or have someone nominate a “spokesperson.” Another strategy I will use to promote engagement is by letting students have a say in classroom activities. For example, the students can choose which activity to do solo or in groups. I can ask students’ inputs in how they want to complete the assessment provided they meet the requirements. I will also do check-ins to monitor how I pace the class, such as “are we comfortable with this or do we need to slow down some?” to check if everyone is keeping up. Having choices to choose from allows the students to feel they have ownership in their learning. The students become more active in order to complete the activity because they have more options (Himmele & Himmele, 2017). Another strategy I will use is to make connections with the students. The classroom is more enjoyable when I get to know the students and when they get to know me. Every time the students walk through the door, my smile and conversation will lighten their moods so that they will be ready to learn in my class. Knowing the students’ backgrounds allows me to provide examples from their lives to help them learn the content and make the learning more accessible (Milner et al., 2019). Another technique is to provide feedback back to the students because they can know what they perform well in and know what areas they need to improve on. With the feedbacks I will provide, the students respond more favorably and remember what they have learned.
I believe as teachers, including myself, in engaging instruction, we need to pick up on the cues that the students give us, such as the number of students who are not interested in the lecture. I then can adjust their instruction to try and engage all of their students; however, in the end, having students simply listen is not a productive action. I believe the solution is that if I want students to engage more in my classroom, then I will need to incorporate more activities for the students. I can learn the students’ interests, have classroom discussions, use technology, have students utilize some of their prior knowledge, provide students with choices, and use games. Having the students moving and talking makes the class so fascinating that students will find it tough not to engage. To know if the students are truly engaging, I can look at the students’ emotions and behaviors. Engagement starts when the student walks into the classroom. The students can smile at me, or they greet me by the door. During instruction, the students respond to my directions, ask questions, take notes, listen, and offer their own input. In groups, students listen to each other, complete their part of the work, and contribute to the discussion. At the end of class, the students say goodbye as they leave, don’t appear tired or mad by the materials in class, and clean up as instructed. As a teacher, I know that it is hard to know what is happening in each students’ mind (Marzano et al., 2003). However, the students can display their feelings and thoughts through their facial expressions and actions. As I learn how to read these signs, I develop an idea of how the students engage with the lesson and can make changes according to the signs. Overall, good engaging instruction improves the success of the course and provides a positive learning environment for both the students and teachers.
References
Himmele, P., & Himmele, W. (2017). Total participation techniques: Making every student an active learner (2nd ed.). ASCD.
Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. ASCD.
Milner, H. R., Cunningham, H. B., Delale-O’Connor, L., & Kestenberg, E. G. (2019). These kids are out of control: Why we must reimagine “classroom management” for equity. Corwin.