Tag: active engagement

Three Ways to Boost Your Classroom Confidence as a Teacher

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Award-Winning Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback). This blog post has been beautifully illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati.

Accompanying podcast episode:

One of the biggest factors that will determine your effectiveness in the classroom as a teacher will be your confidence in front of your students. Your students can only have faith in you if you have faith in yourself.

In today’s blog post, I will go through the top three actions you can take to immediately boost your classroom confidence as a teacher. These tips will prove to be equally useful for both trainee teachers and more experienced educators. Let’s get started!

#1: Know the topic you are teaching REALLY well

By far the best way to boost your confidence in the classroom, or even in any public presentation you will give (e.g. at a talk, seminar or assembly) is to have excellent subject knowledge.

This does NOT mean that you must have a master’s degree or a PhD to be an excellent teacher (on the contrary, some research even indicates that gaining an advanced degree has no effect on a teacher’s overall effectiveness). What it does mean, however, is you must read ahead, you must understand all of the content you are delivering to your students, and you must thoroughly understand how you will use the resources you have selected. Consider enacting the following action steps:

  1. Read over the lesson material before you deliver the lesson. Do NOT assume that, just because you have a degree in this subject area or because you have taught the lesson a few times previously, that you will automatically understand all of the content. It can often be quite surprising just how much you may have forgotten when you read over the lesson materials again.
  2. Never provide resources that involve questioning (e.g. worksheets and live quizzes), if the model answers are not available. Also, make sure you have read over the model answers to such questions and that you understand those answers really well.
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Subject knowledge is the ultimate confidence booster because it allows you to walk into a lesson knowing the ins and outs of what you will teach. Knowing the topic really well also prepares you for any questions the students may have on the content, and also provides you with the skills you need to provide your students with exam-style practice (never neglect that, too).

#2: Plan EVERY lesson thoroughly

Even if you have been teaching full time for twenty years (as I have), you must still go through the process of planning each and every lesson. This does not mean that you need to write a full A4 lesson plan for every class, like you did when you were a trainee. What it does mean, however, is that you should know the ‘running order’ of activities for every lesson you deliver. A good lesson should include the following:

  • A quick starter activity (see this link for ideas)
  • Between 1 and 3 activities that make up the body of the lesson
  • A quick plenary that summarizes what was covered (see this link for ideas)

I recommend using EdTech where possible for any part of your lesson. Live quiz apps are really good, as are shared collaborative whiteboards like Miro and G Suite tools.

Research tells us that lessons that are planned are almost always more effective than those that are not. For me personally, I simply use a teacher’s planner (see this link for the planner I created that you can purchase) and I include a few bullet points of notes for each lesson. I also do a weekly review, so that I know where I am at and where I need to go next. You can read about my top lesson planning tips at this very popular blog post.

#3: Utilize Professional Intelligence

What is ‘Professional Intelligence’ you might ask? Well, put simply, it is professional knowledge that you have gathered about your students. The kind of information you should acquire includes, at a minimum:

  • Student names – these can take a while to remember, even for the most seasoned educators among us. Consider utilizing live quiz apps in your first few lessons – these will help you to quickly identify the students’ preferred names.
  • Which students work well together and which students should be kept apart – this information can be gathered by simply talking with colleagues and line managers about the students before you meet them, or you can gather this information firsthand by trying out a few group games and activities.
  • Any students with Additional Learning Needs/Special Educational Needs in the class – make sure you have read their Individual Education Plans (if available), spoken with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (or the equivalent person in your school) and check out this blog post for tips on helping such students.

You may also want to gather non-confidential information about your students, such as hobbies and interests, as this may help you to create lessons that are tailored to student preferences. Also, don’t forget to check on the running order of school events – some students may need to leave class early, for example, to attend some kind of school event (e.g., orchestra practice) – have you planned for that?

Conclusion

Every teacher must exhibit confidence in the classroom in order to deliver an effective lesson. Much of this will come from experience, but even the most seasoned educators must enact three main action items before any lesson begins:

  • Read ahead and understand the topic you will be teaching
  • Plan every lesson, even if that just involves writing a few bullet points that go through the running order of activities
  • Gathered (and thought about how to utilize) professional intelligence

5 Exceptional Student Engagement Tips for Teachers

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

Maintaining and raising student engagement in the classroom is a persistent challenge for teachers. Today, I’ve invited Kiara Miller from The Speakingnerd to share her ideas on how teachers can keep students focused and stimulated during lessons.

This blog post has been beautifully illustrated by Pop Sutthiya Lertyongphati

Learning and engagement are complementary to each other. As teachers, we would agree that learning seems much harder when students are not engaged. Besides, the world is moving towards massive digitalization in education. This dictates a new trend in education, and online classes have become the new normal. Having said that, the challenge of fostering student engagement in online or hybrid modes seems much more complex. 

However, that is exactly what great teachers do. Teachers are resilient to challenges and come up with a firm solution to every problem. Moreover, as teachers, cultivating high learning engagement in the classroom is largely our responsibility. The bottom line is that the more you understand your students the more remarkable the engagement you can foster.

However, looking at the broader picture, we need a set of actionable strategies to engage our students effectively. 

This is what this blog is all about. In this blog, we shed light on the various tactics that you can apply in the context of classroom management to encourage greater engagement. So, let us get started without further ado.

#1: Interact with your students

Gone are the days when a teacher used to deliver lectures to their students. That was one of the major factors that traditionally resulted in low engagement levels among children. As times have changed and the years have gone by, the classroom has become more of a two-way channel where both the students and teachers interact with each other. Along with teaching a lesson, teachers are now putting in efforts to make the classroom a more collaborative learning environment.

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Considering this, you can also opt for establishing the same interactive learning environment in your classroom. For that, try to interact with your students while teaching, and ask open-ended questions. Let them explore the horizons of their minds while answering your question and give them the liberty to make mistakes.

#2: Share examples of their interests

Students tend to enjoy those learning sessions which consist of interesting examples. This way, they are able to better understand the links between the taught lesson and the real world. This tends to enhance their focus levels and keeps them engaged for a longer duration.

Keeping this in mind, you can make use of various examples when you are delivering lessons. However, you must ensure that the examples are well aligned with your student’s interests. This way, you would be able to keep your students fully indulged in the classroom.

For instance, if your students love talking about leadership, you can discuss various leadership theories with them to capture their interest. This is just an example of how you can get students to pay attention by discussing the topics they love. 

#3: Give them a chance to share their ideas

As you know, children always have questions in their minds. This will further give rise to innovative ideas which they would want to share. Also, this can be used to harness their creative skills to a much greater extent. 

So, you should always encourage your students to come up with different ideas. Once they have something new in their mind, ask them to share it with the class. If your students feel that their ideas are encouraged, this would tend to motivate them to think differently. As a result, they would most likely be engaged when you are teaching them.

Encouraging your students to express their thoughts and ideas is one of the best ways to keep them engaged in the classroom.

#4: Plan activities for the last 5 minutes

Young minds always take a keen interest in activities outside the classroom. Although it can be hard for you to take them outside while teaching, you can include some activities within your classroom environment. Once you are done delivering a lesson, take out the last 5 minutes for some activities with your students. You can play a quiz or a game, or you can ask them to present a topic of their choice. This way, such activities would keep your students engaged.

This can only be done through effective classroom management. Manage your time accordingly so that you can get some spare time for such activities.

#5: Allow them to learn in ways that are in alignment with their capabilities

Personalization is the new normal these days and the same applies to learning. One of the best teaching approaches in contemporary times is to offer personalized learning. Some students can easily grasp new concepts while others might need some additional time to understand the same material.

This is because every student has different capabilities and skills which affect how they learn. This is what you as a teacher need to acknowledge at all times. Keeping this in mind, teachers would need to mold their teaching styles to match the needs of each individual learner, as far as is reasonably possible.

However, it isn’t possible for a teacher to cater fully to every single educational need that is present in the classroom. So, the best way out of this problem is to provide them autonomy to learn at their own pace. This sort of strategy tends to make the learning process much easier and more flexible for the students. Also, it can lead to improved engagement levels among the class.

Providing your students with flexibility in learning can help you to keep them engaged.

#6: Make use of technology in your classroom

Technological advancements in the classroom have enhanced the learning experience for students. Now, with the incorporation of smart classroom technology, video sessions, artificial intelligence, and gamification methods, there are so many ways a teacher can deliver a lesson. Moreover, these technological advancements have kept students interested in learning new things.

Incorporating technological resources into your classroom can greatly improve the engagement levels of your students.

Final conclusion

To conclude, keeping students engaged can be a whole lot of work for teachers. However, after creating an interactive environment within your classroom and providing children with the freedom to learn in a variety of different ways you can keep your students fully engaged in the classroom. Also, technological resources can further enhance their engagement levels.

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