Are you struggling to find effective student engagement strategies for the classroom that are easy to implement and actually work? This is the list for you!
I love that you are here because it already tells me a lot about you.
Firstly, that you love your students and want them to succeed.
Secondly, that you are willing to take the time to learn and improve your teaching practice.
Both of these are such admirable traits to have as a teacher and I am so thrilled to be on this journey with you.
So grab a coffee and relax while we explore effective student engagement strategies together!
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These days keeping students attention seems to be more and more difficult. David Sousa (2015) says this is because they have become accustomed to task switching due to the overuse of technology and constantly having multiple demands for their attention. I have definitely seen this to be true in my own classroom.
So how do we keep students engaged in the classroom?
Here are 31 of my favourite effective student engagement strategies for your classroom:
1. Engage with your students
Students will engage with teachers who engage with them on a personal level. They want to talk with you, laugh with you and learn alongside you. It is important for you to build positive relationships with your students. This will also help you to gain an insight into their personal likes and hobbies. This could also give you the opportunity to bring in some of those topics into your classroom.
This is number one on my list of effective student engagement strategies because it also has a plethora of other benefits. It builds student respect, helps maintain a positive learning environment, reduces classroom management issues, and makes teaching more enjoyable!
2. Provide choice
Providing students with choice allows them to take ownership over their own learning.
This could be chosen as a whole class or individual. This doesn’t mean you are planning 5 different lessons for them to choose from. It could be as simple as providing them a choice as to where they complete their work or who they complete their work with. It could be that students can choose whether they write out notes or take a photo and create an A4 summary page for the notes. It could be choosing between two digital options – Kahoot or Quizlet. For more ideas on how to provide choice in class see my blog post on differentiation strategies .
3. Provide a learning intention to set their brain on the path for learning
If students can’t work out quickly what it is they are meant to be learning then their brain will switch off. Providing students with a clear learning goal for the lesson helps their brain to identify it as important and adjust their focus. These are most effective if you refer back to them during the lesson to help students make links between what they are doing and what they are meant to be learning.
4. Provide success criteria
Success criteria allow students to see their own learning progress towards the learning intention or learning goal. As they see the progress they are more likely to continue being engaged.
5. Meet the students’ needs in terms of difficulty
If you are setting work too hard or too easy for students they will quickly lose interest. This relies on you knowing your students. But it also could be as simple as having a few easy differentiation strategies up your sleeve to easily implement at any moment.
This list of 53 EASY differentiation strategies is a must read and will give you even more ideas for effective student engagement strategies!
6. Provide opportunities for movement
Having the students get up out of their seats and move around increases the flow of oxygen to the brain and therefore allows for higher levels of thinking and concentration. Here are some easy ways to incorporate movement into your classroom.
7. Use brain breaks
Brain breaks allow for students to relax their brain for a few minutes to allow them to be able to return to full concentration. The best brain breaks allow for movement or peer-to-peer discussion.
For practical ways to do this in the classroom read my blog post here .
8. Pay attention to the ‘concentration curve’
Your students’ attention span is approximately their age in minutes. So if you are teaching 15-year-olds, they have about 15 minutes of concentration before their brain needs a break. Provide task changes or brain breaks BEFORE they hit the 15-minute mark to keep your students attention. This needs to happen at multiple intervals during the lesson.
Understanding how our students’ brains work is essential when trying to implement effective student engagement strategies in our classroom.
