Just add a little honey
Part II: Engagement
Sometimes, you need just a little sweetness added to your tea. You may prefer a spoonful of honey over a spoonful of sugar, but either adds just a little bit of flavor to your tea. That extra flavor is like the strategies and techniques that we use to enhance student engagement. For example, when a teacher creates routines and an environment where student collaboration and discourse are the norm, student engagement becomes part of the culture of the classroom. The classroom culture of active learning and critical thinking is like the honey that is blended throughout your tea adding that extra flavor to something that is already wonderful.
That extra flavor doesn’t have to be honey. It could be adding fresh fruit or a sprig of mint. Maybe, you prefer adding milk or a flavored-creamer to your tea. Whatever you add makes your tea just a little bit more enjoyable. The same is true with incorporating strategies that focus on student engagement. There are a variety of ways that you can get students actively engaged in learning.
One of the best ways to get students collaborating and discussing content is to defront your classroom and arrange your desks in small groups. We often overlook that fact that when students walk into our classrooms they get an immediate impression of our teaching style and expectations. When they see desks in small groups, they can sense that they will be asked to work together and discuss what they are learning. Along with the classroom arrangement, if you incorporate think-pair-share, small group discussion, and team activities on a daily basis, collaboration and discourse become not only a routine, but an expectation of how students learn in your classroom.
Whiteboards can be an amazing tool for getting students to collaborate on problems and show their thinking. I use whiteboards in three ways in my classroom. First, I have small individual whiteboards that students can write on and hold up. These are great for doing formative assessment of the whole class. You can get an immediate idea if students have picked up a new skill. I am also fortunate to have whiteboard tables in my classroom. Adding the tables has been a game-changer for me. The tables magically draw students into the discussion of a problem. My students often work out the problems individually, while checking and comparing their thinking with their table mates. The tables also give me the opportunity to rotate from table to table assessing and discussing problems with small groups. The third way that I use whiteboard was inspired by Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl. I have students work in small groups at vertical whiteboards located around the room. The dynamic of student discussion changes when students are standing and working together. This strategy also encourages students to walk over to other groups to discuss their strategies and borrow ideas that can move their group’s thinking forward. Again, it gives me a great opportunity to assess student thinking and to pose questions to groups as they are working.
Another way to engage students and make learning fun is to incorporate a variety of games and activities that require students to move around the classroom. There are so many ways that you can take a boring practice worksheet and turn it into a fun activity. For example, problem sets can be used as questions in a relay race, a scavenger hunt, card sort, or even an escape room. The possibilities are endless for adding a little creativity to your classroom activities. Little things like turning a test review into a stations activity can go a long way. Students appreciate the opportunity to get up and move around.
Lastly, it is important to mix things up a bit in your classroom. Using the same activities every week quickly makes your classroom predictable and boring. Adding new activities and rotating through your go-to activities will add an element of surprise that students will enjoy and appreciate. Going back to our tea analogy, it is always nice to add some variety. Sometimes, you prefer a spoonful of honey and on other days adding a little mint is so much better.
