As teachers, you already use a variety of engagement strategies in classroom instruction. However, given students’ special needs and different learning styles, many teachers may struggle with finding the right approach and the time to engage all students fully. As teachers, we become able, often through trial and error, to identify strategies that work within a particular group or ability level.
Can you describe a specific memorable lesson or activity when most of your students were engaged or worked particularly well for a particular student or group of students?
I have a DHH student in class. In our planners, there is a section that has signs. Several students have come together and started practicing so they can communicate when the interpreter in not available.
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I posted a word cloud with vocabulary words. I had students talk in pairs about the words. Then pick 3 words to write about. This helped learning support students who didn’t know how to start.
To help keep my students engaged during a science lesson I had students in groups. They all received talking chips. I just used round circles that I had. This idea was taken from the Kagan Strategy book. This allows all of the students to have a chance to engage in the conversation at least 1 time. This worked well with my students who usually take over the conversation and allows every student to have a voice.
I can't pinpoint a single lesson, but I've found that my most successful lessons are consistently hands-on and encourage collaborative work. These activities engage students more deeply and allow them to learn from each other while exploring concepts in a tangible way. The combination of active participation and teamwork seems to create the most memorable and effective learning experiences.
So many great responses here! Might be borrowing some of these ideas! In math intervention, one of the ways I make it accessible to everyone especially when we are discussing our answers is I will provide sentence stems. This gives students an entry point if they have an answer but don't know how to start. We use manipulatives with each lesson so it's always hands on, but I try to encourage more discussion and sentence stems have been a game changer for getting students to start!
