At last, five steps that will increase student engagement in your classroom. Why should you increase student engagement?

• The main reason, we have competition. In a world full of technology and an abundance of media, educators have a great deal of competition. Therefore, student engagement in classrooms is declining. The struggle is real!
• Luckily, I have created five steps to increase student engagement within each of your lessons. The outcome is total student involvement and participation. Follow these engagement strategies; you, too, can captivate your students!

1. Hook Your Students Right Away!

Student engagement is dependent on your ability to grab the student’s attention right from the beginning. Therefore, take advantage of your opportunity to show your excitement and allow the students to join you with full enthusiasm.  To create the perfect hook, remember CCR. (No, not Credence Clear Water Revival.) CCR stands for Creative, Clear, and Relevant.

• Creativity- allows students to use their imagination, ask questions, and explore. One example of an engaging hook is through Classroom Transformations, as demonstrated by @engaginglatinteacher.
• Clarity- provides students with a simple explanation of expectations and outcomes.
• Relevance- an explanation of the importance of the skill.

Students are eager and ready to learn. (Mic drop! )

2. Increase Engagement with Student Talk

Teachers like to talk-no doubt about it. Therefore, to increase student engagement, make sure you provide plenty of talking opportunities for the students too. The recently recommended ratio of student versus teacher talk is 80/20. Here are a few engagement strategies to implement right away.

• Think-Pair-Share– The teacher provides sufficient think time; then, students turn to a partner to share. (Variation: A-B Partners with the teacher assigning who speaks first.)
• Accountable Talk– Sentence starters to build academic discussions among classmates. Click here to view this item in my TPT store.
• Whip Around– Students share out with a quick response as the teacher moves the speaking from one person to the other in a circular manner or across the rows.
• Numbered Heads-Teams of students, each assigned a number one through four. Team discussions take place, and students determine one agreed response. The teacher will randomly call a number. Each team member with that number will share out with the entire class.
• Cloze Reading– the teacher reads aloud, stopping for students to fill in the missing word. The teacher immediately continues to read. The strategy repeats throughout the reading.

3. Movement as An Engagement Strategy

Students are more engaged with movement.  Therefore, the Total Physical Response (TPR) Strategy provides students with movement opportunities fostering student engagement. A simple hand gesture related to keyword aids in student retention. Also, the use of movement provides an opportunity of checking for understanding CFU. Click here for a FREE Checklist of CFU’s to use in your classroom.

Below are a few ways to incorporate movement into your lessons.

• Total Physical Response (TPR)– to mime, gesture, and move the body with the intent to connect the movement with vocabulary or skill. A perfect example is the “Head and Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” song.
• Response Cards– Includes index cards, dry-erase boards, or any other object to show an immediate response.
• Hand Signals– Hand signals and gestures as holding up one, two, or three fingers indicate an answer.
• Four Corners– First, the students complete a given skill independently. Next, the teacher assigns a corner for each student. Within this corner, the students discuss the concept and receive feedback from their classmates. Lastly, the students may then move to another corner repeating the process.
• Give One and Get One– The teacher poses a question or a brainstorming task. Next, students record their responses on an index card or paper. Afterward, students then draw a line under their last reply. Finally, students move around the classroom, giving one answer to a student and receiving one return.

4. “Learn by Doing”

The “Learning by Doing” theory involves students “doing” the work for full engagement. Eventually, a flat tire taught me a lesson about the approach. (You may be able to relate.)

Upon discovering my flat tire, I immediately got on my phone to research how to change a flat tire. As a result, I now knew the steps outlined for changing a flat tire. At this point, I still didn’t know how to do it myself.  Since my abilities were questionable, I did like most Americans and watched YouTube. As described, I have seen the steps needed to change the tire but still have done it myself. Finally, it wasn’t until I got out of the car and went through each agonizing phase until I truly knew how to change a flat tire.
As noted, student engagement increases with hands-on learning opportunities, which may include a few listed below.

• Manipulatives– objects and tools used to aid in learning a concept.
• Games and Hands-on Activities- click here and here for additional posts.
• Quick Writes/Sketch– A fast pass of getting thoughts onto paper
• Two-Column Notes– Such as a T-chart used for a variety of topics
• Graphic Organizers– Venn Diagrams, Compare/Contrast, Word Web, TimeLine, Cause/Effect, Problem/Solution, etc.

5. Implement Self Reporting Grades to Increase Student Engagement

For best practices, be sure to increase student engagement throughout the lesson, even at the end. As a suggestion, a great way to do this is by self-reporting grades. If you haven’t tried this strategy yet, let me tell you, it’s a game-changer! Although there are many forms, a popular method is to have students grade their work based on the given success criteria. Finally, students identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas to grow.

In the next step, students set and record goals for reaching new levels. If desired, a more simple version of self-reported grading is to lay out three bins. For my class, I labeled the baskets with the following terms.

• 3- I’m an expert
• 2- Yes, I’ve got it!
• 1- Still learning, not there YET. (If you teach the very young ones, emoji faces work well too.)

For closure, students place their work in the corresponding bin. You will be amazed at how spot-on each student is with their self-reporting of grades.

To summarize, student engagement creates the learning environment needed for all students to succeed. With these simple steps, your students are sure to engage in all your lessons.

Also, make sure your students have a solid grasp of paragraph writing. Check out my FREE Structured Paragraph Handbook, which will guide you and your students through the steps needed to create the perfect paragraph.