student engagement Search Results

Episode 124: A Closer Look at Open Educational Resources

…has the finest professional field educators in the business because The educators you travel with Matter. Learn more at chillexpeditions.com. Support also comes from Pear Deck, the tool that helps you supercharge student engagement. With Pear Deck, you can take any Google Slides or PowerPoint Online presentation, add interactive questions or embed websites directly into your lesson, and send it to student devices so they can participate in real time while you present. Pear Deck has always been compatible with Google Apps for Education, but starting this summer, teachers at Microsoft schools can use Pear Deck with PowerPoint Online and…

Students Sitting Around Too Much? Try Chat Stations.

…to engage our less talkative students. Chat Stations offer another way to get them more involved. Here’s a video demonstrating how Chat Stations work: The more traditional kinds of stations—where students perform more complex or hands-on work—are still the gold standard for student engagement, but Chat Stations can be a great strategy for those times when you haven’t been able to prepare a “real” station. They still get students up and moving and breathe new life into your content. And there’s really no limit to how challenging your questions can be. I’m pretty sure I haven’t invented anything new…

5 Ways College Teachers Can Improve Their Instruction

…“Write the student’s name on both sides of the card with a marker, so that when a student is talking, and their tent is on their table, students behind that person can actually see their names.” Obviously, these cards will help the instructor call students by name, but they should also be used to help students engage with each other. In every class meeting, Eng reminds students to refer to their classmates by name. Although this can feel forced at first, students will eventually learn each other’s names and it will come naturally to them. 3. Implement “Cold Calling” and “No…

Episode 57: Nine Simple Solutions for Common Teaching Problems

…to do what’s right for kids.” Because we’re kind of too caught up in the politics and the bureaucracy. GONZALEZ: So what is one of the hacks that they share for making this happen? BARNES: One of my favorites in the book is they call broadcast student voices. So this is really both for principals and teachers, and teacher leaders. The idea that we always say, “Hey, students should have a voice.” Student voice is really trendy in education right now, and there’s a lot of good books about it, but how do we really do it? What does it…

Summer 2014 Book Study: Understanding by Design

…for instruction that nurtures it. Facet 1: Explanation. The student can “provide sophisticated theories and illustrations, which provide knowledgeable and justified accounts of events, actions, and ideas.” Instructionally, we should provide opportunities for students to wrestle with questions, problems and issues. Assessments should require students to provide explanations on their own, rather than recall or recognize others’ explanations. Facet 2: Interpretation. The student can interpret and translate items in order to assign greater meaning than what lies on the surface. In our units, we should give students practice with interpreting “inherently ambiguous matters.” When studying well-established or “expert” interpretations, it…

Blended Learning: 4 Models that Work

…of their lessons, they create learning experiences that are more engaging, accessible, and equitable for students. They also help to address key “pain points” that teachers experience that can cause them to feel frustrated and disillusioned with this profession. Pain Point #1: Low Levels of Students Motivation One pain point I hear about in my work is a perceived lack of student motivation, which manifests in low levels of engagement. Research on motivation indicates that students are more likely to be motivated when they experience autonomy and agency, feel confident in their ability to complete a task, and belong to…

Episode 107: The Best Ways to Use Leveled Texts

…the question of how best to match texts to readers. She starts with a discussion of why we have leveled texts to begin with, what their original purpose was, and the missteps we often make as teachers when using them. Then she explores the levels themselves—for fiction and non-fiction—and unpacks the characteristics to look for in each one. Finally, she brings it all together, showing teachers how to combine their knowledge of text levels and students to assess student comprehension, set goals, and match students with books that are just right for them. In our conversation, we talk about the…

17 Tweaks That Make a Big Difference in Group Work

…do not reflect how each student stacks up against the target. Activities that involve groups working together should be followed by individual assessment to gather accurate data about what each student took away from their group learning task. Common Approach #16: Grouping students for simple tasks Tweak: Design group work for complex tasks that require multiple thinkers. Just because there is evidence that group work and student collaboration supports learning, doesn’t mean it’s always the best fit for every lesson and learning task. When a planned activity is simple and students are capable of completing it independently, you run the…

10 Ways to Give a Better Lecture

…do something more active like a quick This or That activity, where students move to one side of the room or the other based on their answer to a question. Discussion can be plugged in between lecture segments. In pairs or small groups, students can respond to questions that ask them to reflect, brainstorm, or expand on what’s being presented in the lecture. Student engagement platforms like Nearpod and Pear Deck allow you to add interactive elements into your slideshow and share them with students so they can respond to questions right inside the presentation and you can see their…