As a teacher, your primary job is to educate your students and help them learn. There’s a lot more to that than simply coming out with facts and statistics, however. You’ll need to keep students engaged to make sure they’re actually paying attention and learning.
With the sheer amount of distractions – and kids just being kids – this can be difficult, however. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though.
Instead, there are more than a few ways you can do this. You could’ve learned a few of these when you were becoming an educator, but they mightn’t be enough. You might need a few extra strategies on top of that.
While you’ll need to keep in mind that no two students are the same, it doesn’t mean there aren’t a few general strategies you can use.
It’s worth diving into a few of the more notable of these. They’ll not only help you keep students engaged, but they’ll be relatively easy to implement. As an educator, you’ve no reason not to put some time and effort into them.
Why Keep Students Engaged?
Before diving in, it’s worth looking at why you should keep students engaged in the first place. The most obvious reason is it makes sure they’re actually paying attention to what you’re saying. You’ll get more respect as an educator because of that.
Then there’s the fact that engaged students are ones who are actually learning. If they’re not paying attention or engaged with their learning materials, then they’re not going to be able to learn it.
Some of the more notable benefits of keeping students engaged are:
- Increasing the amount of attention students pay to your lessons
- Improving the amount students learn in class
- Preventing students from missing out on important information
- Minimizing disruptive behavior in the classroom
- Increasing test scores long-term
These are all worth striving for, but you’ll need to know how to keep students engaged to actually see them. While there’ll always be some students who aren’t as engaged as you’d like, there are still more than a few strategies you can use.
Seven of these stand out because of how effective they are.
They’ll not only engage your students, but you shouldn’t have to spend too much time or effort on them. It’s worth diving in, and you shouldn’t have anything to worry about in the future.
Keep Students Engaged: 7 Great Strategies
1. Warm Them Up First
When students first start class for the day, they could still be waking up and need to start focusing. It’s one of the more notable factors that affect their engagement. Even by the end of the day, they could feel a bit mentally tired. It’s worth addressing both of these to keep them engaged.
Warming them up at the start of class can be a great way of getting around this. A quick warm-up activity could be more than enough to do this. It shouldn’t have to take much time to do this, and you’ll move onto the proper lesson before you know it.
2. Test Them Regularly
Testing your students regularly can be a great way of keeping them engaged, as most of them will want to do well with these tests. While these don’t need to be large exams that have a massive impact on their grades, they can still be an effective way to keep students engaged.
Even simple questionnaires about a subject you’re teaching them about can help with this more than you’d think. Making these tests as interesting and fun as possible adds to this, and you should see an increased engagement because of them.
3. Implement Self-Paced Work
Students all learn at different paces, and teachers need to be aware of that. By going at the same pace all the time, you could either be too slow for some students or too fast for others. That’s why it’s always worth implementing work that can be self-paced, and it could help quite a bit.
While this wouldn’t apply to all the lessons you’ll have to get through, it can still help with quite a bit. You could even make homework self-paced if you want to have more of an impact. It’ll get rid of a lot of frustration, and students will be better for it.
4. Make Students A Part Of The Process
Quite a few teachers believe they should be doing all of the talking, and students are just there to listen and take notes. That isn’t the case. Students should be a part of the process as much as possible. The more they’re part of the process, the more engaged they’ll be. Thankfully, there are more than a few ways you can do this.
Implementing games into your lessons can be a great way of doing this. Even something as small as Would You Rather questions for students can help. These get students more engaged and forces them to pay attention in a way they’ll enjoy, so there’s no reason not to put the effort in.
5. Run Reflections
Reflecting is often a good way for people to learn and improve themselves. It’s something countless adults do regularly, and there’s no reason it mightn’t help your students. It could be worth setting up reflection sessions for your students. It gets them reflecting on what they’ve learned in the days or weeks beforehand.
If you do this at the end of every week or when you finish a specific subject, you’ll keep students engaged more than you’d think. Focus on getting students to reflect on the core points and lessons of the subject, and you shouldn’t have much of a problem with it.
6. Arrange Group Discussions
Students are often much more engaged when they can talk to each other. They’re more invested in the conversations because of that, and it’s often worth taking advantage of this. Setting up group discussions could be a great way of doing that. It’ll get your students talking and engaged with the lessons much more.
Let them talk amongst themselves about the subject you’re teaching them about, and you shouldn’t have much of a problem with this. While you’ll need to set rules with these discussions, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be helpful in engaging your students. It’s worth trying a few times to see how much it helps.
7. Get Feedback From Students
Sometimes, few ways to keep students engaged that you try might be as helpful as you’d like. You could struggle with finding ways that’ll actually help with student engagement. As mentioned above, getting them involved in the process helps, but it’s worth taking a few steps on top of that.
Getting feedback from your students about your lessons and teaching style could help more than you’d think. It gives you a better idea of what’ll get them engaged and keep them paying attention to your lessons. It’s worth giving this a go, as it could help more than you’d think.
Keep Students Engaged: Wrapping Up
You’ll need to keep students engaged if you truly want them to learn. While that’s obvious, actually keeping them engaged can often be difficult. There’ll be plenty of times where students just aren’t paying attention.
That doesn’t mean you need to settle for that. It’s just a matter of implementing the right strategies.
Not only should the right ones keep students engaged, but they’ll be relatively easy to implement. You shouldn’t have to put much time and effort into it, and you’ll end up seeing the results before you know it.
