5 Guarantee Ways to Increase Students Engagement in Classroom

Active engagement in the classroom is often difficult because there is not any all-in-one strategy that could work in most situations. If you are an innovative and ambitious teacher, the will want your students be engaged in the class. There are no such ideas as guarantee engagement of the students.

I have experienced many faults in teaching style and typical approaches of old fashioned traditional teachers. I know on what grounds a teacher is always successful in giving high results. You may want to know more about 6 qualities  of a successful teacher.

You might be known to a variety of tools and techniques that may build interest in your students. But the problem is that there are not such methods as will work in every situation. So, here is a list for you. These ideas are tested by me in my own class rooms. I have experienced the work of these ways and I am happy to share them with you.

1. Use examples from real life and ask every student to connect the concepts to their personal lives.

Believe me, the students are more interested in knowing how a particular concept they study in their course relates to their own lives. Just ask your students to narrate an example form their lives. Ask them to present their examples in written or verbal forms. For example if the topic is ‘Technology kills the people’ you can tell them an example of how one of your friends fell a victim of electric shock and kicked the bucket. Inspire your students to tell such examples from their own lives.

I was once teaching the student how physical health is linked with our mental performance and educational grades. I told them that how their physical health directly affects their brain and how their mental performance is affected ultimately. I gave them an example of a bright student of mine who fell a victim of typhoid. He, after recovering the illness, could not perform well in the exams followed by his recovery.  Similarly I told them the story of their own class fellow. 

Then I asked them if anyone could tell such examples. One of them started and everyone say something or other. They were given an assignment on collecting various health factors that affect their educational performance. It was an interesting idea for the students as I knew they would do it with zeal as it has something to do with their lives.

2. Use creative approach to make new things and ideas

Ask your students to make something new using the knowledge and skills he learnt from the class. As it is for sure, every student is creative in some sense. You have to motivate them to take the initiative. I, as a teacher, believe in my students. For example, your students may use the toothpicks and modeling clay to create molecules in a Biology class. Thus creativity will not only give them real learning environment but it will also keep them engaged. Make the teaching an interesting thing for your students.

3. Organize Group work Activities

Sharing of knowledge and opinions can help increase the engagement in the classroom. Ask your students to share their opinion with others. Divide the students in groups and ask them to discuss the topic. Students love group discussions as they feel free to say anything they perceive. 

Students will help each other in this way.  However, you can use small break-out collaboration sessions as opportunities to engage with ideas and create teachable moments where students help each other with any missing pieces that their peers require. All members are then actively engaging and contributing in a meaningful way.

4. Ask your students to share their own views, experiences, and knowledge through blogging

This tool will keep them engaged with the content. As they will write a post, help them promote their message to other people in the world. Appreciate their accomplishments and help them even do much better. Ask every student to pass at least one comment to the post of other students. It will generate discussion and the students will be engaged.

There are movies that can teach a particular idea to your students. From many of the Bollywood movies, These are recommended for every college student and These are recommended for every teacher.

5. Integrate some social media tools into your active classroom

Social Media has become an important tool for spreading your words. Get your students connected beyond the classroom environment. See the concepts and ideas work in real world. You can use twitter, Linkedin and facebook page etc to provide a platform of information from the educational space.

Social media can be used to engage the students in commenting and resharing the ideas and concepts with different perspectives. As we all know, the students are really interested in social media sharing and they will find it interesting to deliver them a lecture with social media website opened in front of them. You may choose relevant posts to include in your lecture as examples and central content.

For example you can discuss the profile pictures of the people if your are giving lecture on clothing, hair style, fashion etc. You can discuss the birthday celebration pictures of the people to discuss the type of cakes, decorations, indoor/outdoor celebration trends, gatherings of people etc.

There are many apps that help students in learning. I recommend this list of 10 apps recommended for every college student.  

If you are sure of some other strategies, We welcome your contribution as comments...

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