Make your lessons interesting, interactive, and engaging Successful lessons are explicit, yet also inspire active learning and opportunities to respond. As the one shaping lessons, can you do better? Probably, and you’re not alone. Research shows teachers consistently offer students far fewer than the recommended opportunities to respond, leaving all students—including those with special needs and behavior challenges—less than engaged and falling short of their best chance for success. With this book, you’ll discover 14 strategies you can translate directly to your classroom, complete with descriptions, advantages and disadvantages of each, and how and when best to use them. Divided into three parts, you will be guided through Verbal engagement strategies, such as whip around, choral responding, quick polls, and individual questioning Non-verbal engagement strategies, such as stop and jot, guided notes, response cards, and hand signals Partner and teaming strategies, such as turn & talk, cued retell, four corners, and classroom mingle Dive into these strategies and transform your classroom into a rich and interactive environment—no matter the subject, context, or age of your students.

Student engagement happens as a result of a teacher’s careful planning and execution of specific strategies. This self-study text provides in-depth understanding of how to generate high levels of student attention and engagement. Using the suggestions in this book, every teacher can create a classroom environment where engagement is the norm, not the exception.

"This book's focus is on taking action in the world and making students better-prepared citizens"--

Student learning communities (SLCs) are more than just a different way of doing group work. Like the professional learning communities they resemble, SLCs provide students with a structured way to solve problems, share insight, and help one another continually develop new skills and expertise. With the right planning and support, dynamic collaborative learning can thrive everywhere. In this book, educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and John Almarode explain how to create and sustain student learning communities by - Designing group experiences and tasks that encourage dialogue; - Fostering the relational conditions that advance academic, social, and emotional development; - Providing explicit instruction on goal setting and opportunities to practice progress monitoring; - Using thoughtful teaming practices to build cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional regulation skills; - Teaching students to seek, give, and receive feedback that amplifies their own and others' learning; and - Developing the specific leadership skills and strategies that promote individual and group success. Examples from face-to-face and virtual K–12 classrooms help to illustrate what SLCs are, and teacher voices testify to what they can achieve. No more hoping the group work you're assigning will be good enough—or that collaboration will be its own reward. No more crossing your fingers for productive outcomes or struggling to keep order, assess individual student contributions, and ensure fairness. Student Learning Communities shows you how to equip your students with what they need to learn in a way that is truly collective, makes them smarter together than they would be alone, creates a more positive classroom culture, and enables continuous academic and social-emotional growth.

This monograph examines the nature of active learning at the higher education level, the empirical research on its use, the common obstacles and barriers that give rise to faculty resistance, and how faculty and staff can implement active learning techniques. A preliminary section defines active learning and looks at the current climate surrounding the concept. A second section, entitled "The Modified Lecture" offers ways that teachers can incorporate active learning into their most frequently used format: the lecture. The following section on classroom discussion explains the conditions and techniques needed for the most useful type of exchange. Other ways to promote active learning are also described including: visual learning, writing in class, problem solving, computer-based instruction, cooperative learning, debates, drama, role playing, simulations, games, and peer teaching. A section on obstacles to implementing active learning techniques leads naturally to the final section, "Conclusions and Recommendations," which outlines the roles that each group within the university can play in order to encourage the implementation of active learning strategies. The text includes over 200 references and an index. (JB)

This is a breakthrough book on student engagement. Join Dennis Shirley and Andy Hargreaves, two award-winning authors and leaders in their field, on a profound educational quest that will take you through exciting and challenging terrain. Five Paths of Student Engagement will open your eyes, heart and mind and empower you to implement practices that lead directly to your students' well-being, learning, and success. By integrating psychological and sociological perspectives, and using inspiring examples from seven years of research, this book delves deeply into the what, why, and how of student engagement. It reveals who and what the true enemies of student engagement are, and shows you how to defeat them. It will enrich and reward your work for years to come. Utilize research-based strategies to promote active engagement in the classroom and build the foundation for student growth: Learn why active engagement is the new frontier of student achievement. Understand how engaging students means so much more than defeating boredom. Consider psychological and sociological theories that cast new light on engagement and motivation. Reflect on how engagement is about mystery and magic, meaning and purpose, and focus and mastery. Understand why increasing classroom engagement requires much more than surveys, rubrics and observation protocols. Learn strategies to battle all five enemies of engagement in order to engage students totally and motivate unmotivated students. Explore five clear paths of engagement that lead to improving student learning and success that all teachers and schools can embark upon immediately. Contents: Preface Chapter 1: From Achievement to Engagement--Two Ages of Educational Change Chapter 2: Theories of Engagement and Motivation--From Maslow to Flow Chapter 3: Three Myths of Engagement--Relevance, Technology, and Fun Chapter 4: The Five Enemies of Engagement--How to Defeat Them Chapter 5: Standardized Testing--The Archenemy of Engagement Chapter 6: The Five Pathways of Student Engagement--In Theory and Practice Chapter 7: The Promise of Engagement--A Battle for Change References Index

The focus of this book is to provide teachers with the tools to cultivate engaged learners, which includes developing healthy relationships with their students, based on research suggesting that positive teacher-student relationships improve achievement.