Keeping students engaged and back in a routine after 18 months of craziness
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Getting your pupils
to be fully focused at the start of term is often a challenge, and especially
after the craziness in the last 18 months.
After a
well-deserved break your pupils are now back in the classroom and as a teacher
you’ll undoubtedly want to ensure that they’re on board and engaged with the
tasks at hand.
But achieving this
is often one of the main challenges for teachers, which is why we’ve rounded up
some of the best tips and tricks for staff of all levels to use to when it
comes to creating fun and engaging lessons for the school year ahead.
Understanding engagement
A child’s
engagement levels in school will ultimately dictate how well they learn and how
successfully they can demonstrate their knowledge in exams, coursework and
other work.
However it’s also
important for teacher’s to recognise that engagement goes far beyond whether a
pupil is paying attention and also needs to consider whether they are actively
involved in developing their own learning.
Of course there’s no defined way of telling this, which can make it tricky to judge, but how pupils respond to questions, approach tasks and show creativity can all
indicate how engaged they may or may not be.
If you can gain an
understanding of your pupils and what makes them tick, you can then create a
learning environment designed to help them succeed.
Guide but don’t go overboard
Pupils require a
certain amount of guidance to help their learning, but too much assistance can
actually be detrimental when it comes to engagement.
It’s therefore
necessary for teachers to find a balance whereby pupils are encouraged to think
for themselves, but yet are still working within some confines to ensure the
desired learning outcomes.
Providing some
limited choices can help to achieve this – from enabling pupils to sit with
their friends, to giving them options for how they present a project.
Encourage creativity
Pupils are
generally more likely to be engaged with work if they feel they can put their
own stamp on it, so look to encourage originality when setting classroom tasks.
By discussing the
sorts of skills and processes that should be used, but still providing a level
of creative freedom, children can be encouraged to think outside-of-the-box and
to put a greater emphasis on innovative and inspirational ideas.
This can often be
built into lesson plans in the form of brainstorming and ideation time, and is
also a good way of making children feel involved throughout the process.
You may also be able to guide learning through the tasks, so that a child’s natural curiosity will enable them to uncover the key learnings and be inspired to learn
more in
the process.
Relate learning to real-life
If pupils can
relate scenarios and ideas to real-life situations, it’s beneficial to both
their learning and their understanding, while it also encourages them to take
more ownership of their learning.
Using scenarios and
diverse examples in lessons can help to involve different pupils too, and it
may be the case that different pupils have different outlooks based on their
own experiences.
Consider how movement could make a difference
Moving children
around the classroom to work in different groups or sit at different desks for
tasks can help to keep them engaged, compared to having them sat in the same
place for too long.
Even actions such
as encouraging them to stand up when speaking can help to keep their brains
active and on task.
Numerous studies
suggest that movement can help to boost classroom cohesion too, encouraging
more pupils to participate in tasks while also building their self-esteem and
sense of belonging.
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