3 min read
Learning can be likened to dinner parties. When the learning process is dull, students tend to lose focus. Conversely, when they are lively, students maintain their focus and even better grasp what they are being taught. Student engagement is key to student learning and success.
Maintaining students’ enthusiasm in their schooling has been a puzzle that many education professionals have not yet solved. In the conventional classroom-based technique in which the day is segmented and punctuated by bells, students come across different teachers, leaving them feeling disengaged and alienated.
Restructuring students’ learning journey by making it more engaging results in stronger achievement in courses, a stronger satisfaction with the learning experience, and an increase in the rate at which students graduate. Student engagement refers to the degree of curiosity, optimism, interest, attention, and passion students portray when undertaking a course. So how can student engagement be enhanced?
Strategies for engaging your students
Connecting the learning process to the real world. Many students often wonder how some of the things they learn at school will impact their lives. The best way of getting rid of such thought is by engaging students with content that they know has relevance to them beyond their school life. Teachers can achieve this by using real-life examples and case studies outside the classroom when handling various topics.
Making use of group work and collaboration
Students should be occasionally organized into small groups to break the monotony of reading books predominantly. Study groups enable students to share their perspectives on different subjects with their peers. Consequently, it helps them become more articulate in presenting their viewpoint.
You should ensure that you create the right balance in the study groups. When creating the study groups, ensure that there are no troublesome partnerships.
Encouraging to present and share their work occasionally
Allowing students to present their work in front of their peers helps them develop accountability. It also helps them get critique from someone else other than their teachers. As such, it widens their thought process.
Engaging with your student’s interest
Actively interact with your students to find out what interests them and find a way to include it in the learning process. For instance, you could have students chart their mathematical performance in the form of a video presentation. Knowing what interests your students is not only beneficial in engaging them, but it also helps you build a strong rapport with them.
Use active teaching methods
Get your students moving. Suppose your students have difficulty sitting still for long periods; get them moving. You can channel the spent up energy into a learning activity that gets them moving. Some things you can do to make them active include:
- Having students come to the front to brainstorm ideas together on the whiteboard
- Splitting students into groups to undertake discussions on various topics
What are the Benefits of Increasing Student Engagement?
It helps foster interaction and community
Engaging students in the learning process through group discussions allow them to better interact with them. When you make a conscious effort to use engaging techniques when teaching your students, they will develop a positive attitude towards school. Additionally, they are more likely to develop close ties with their fellow students.
It nurtures students communication skills
A school is a place where students should hone their communication skills. Interactive learning helps create eloquent communicators who know how to engage their audiences.
It helps nature students’ creativity
When you use engaging students to teach your students, the chances are that you will be able to identify their interests and help them nature them. Students with creative skills are in high demand due to technological advancements. You should challenge your students to think outside the box to discover their inner creativity.
Student engagement can help you determine who is contributing in a class and to what extent.
When teachers use non-engaging teaching methods, there is a high probability that they won’t be able to identify students who are having difficulty with a given subject. Making use of engaging teaching methods helps teachers control how much a given student talks. Additionally, it can help them create a rapport with the less vocal students.
It improves student performance
When students are engaged in the learning process, they are less likely to lose interest in what they are taught. Engaged students are more likely to excel in standardized tests and less likely to drop out.
Learning should not only be for passing knowledge. You should aim for student engagement to help students succeed in their studies.