An article by Richard James Rogers
Illustrations by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati
In this second of our three-week, three-part series, we’ll be continuing our investigation into how outstanding teachers keep their students on-task, entertained and engaged every single lesson.
This week, we’ll be focussing on a further two key areas of Active Engagement:
- How outstanding teachers consistently create an ‘air of mystery and anticipation’ by getting the students to figure out the learning outcomes by themselves
- How an atmosphere of immense excitement, enjoyment, participation and learning can be created by using a few simple games and applying them to your subject area, on a frequent basis
The following extracts and images come from the Active Engagement chapter of my debut book: The Quick Guide to Classroom Management. I hope the information is useful to you, and don’t forget: we welcome your comments with open-arms! If you’d like to share your thoughts with us then please do comment using the comments box at the bottom of the page.
This week’s blog post is quite a large one, but we urge you to please read until the end as the information contained here is incredibly practical and helpful. Please feel free to bookmark this page and visit it often!
Here we go!
Here are some cool games you can use for any lesson!
Splat: Write a few key words on the whiteboard and you’re ready to go!
Mystery Picture: This one really gets the cognitive juices flowing and it’s a lot of fun!
Mystery Word: Simple and inexpensive. Another vocabulary-based game
Corners: I play this every Friday afternoon with my Year 9 Science class. It perks them up and is very competitive! Great for issuing out House Points, merit stickers or other rewards.
Bingo: Not just a numbers game! Read the game card below to see how it can be applied across different subject areas!
Who am I? : Despite it’s childish nature, kids of all ages love this!
Vocabulary Musical Chairs: Get ready for an exciting class with this one! Make sure there are no obstacles in the way for kids to trip on.
The Poster Game: One of my proudest pedagogical inventions. This game takes some time to set up, but once it’s ready it works like a treat! This game gives you the best of both worlds: fun and deep learning!
Thank you for reading! Please share and please come back to visit us!
