Engage Students

Instruction & Tasks
Provide meaningful instruction and learning activities that require students to use their critical and creative thinking skills.

Differentiate how students receive content, how they engage in the learning process, and how they demonstrate their learning via a product, following the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
Integrate technology
- Vary learning experiences: Small group work gives students more opportunities to engage and get involved in their learning, which increases their on-task behavior. Students exhibit more disruptive behaviors during whole-class, teacher-led activities.
Avoid worksheets, busy work, and downtime. Always provide students with more work to engage with, more learning to achieve, so they do not become bored and feel the need to entertain themselves--or others! Students can always be reading a book, working on a project, or writing for an assignment.

Choice
Choice is a way to allow students more control in regards to what they are learning, as well as how they are learning it. In addition, choice increases student engagement and motivation, and results in a classroom that is focused on the co-construction of knowledge, instead of relying on the teacher as the source of all knowledge.

Make sure the choices are feasible and fit into the goals of the activity/assignment.
Choices should be clear, structured, and minimized (2-3 options maximum).
Be clear about the expectations: “Here are the three learning activities you’ll be working on today. You can do them in whatever order you want.” Keep students accountable and on task by having them identify what they are working on (using a class chart or a personal organizer, which could be as simple as a post-it with the tasks written in order of how they would like to proceed).
Assist students in this decision making by teaching time management and task organization.
When working with a student who is resistant to work completion, giving them choice can have a positive impact on the on-task behavior.

Student Response Cards

Voice
Increase the rate of students’ opportunities to respond in order to maximize student engagement. These types of activities encourage students to participate in a variety of ways, going beyond just verbal participation. In addition, teachers can use this as a formative assessment, to see what learning has occurred and what instruction still needs to occur, and with whom.

Students can respond to prompts or questions using student response cards, (true/false, often color coded, or a/b/c/d), which helps to engage all students as the entire class is responding to each question, instead of just one child per question.
Response cards can also be visual, to support learners who rely on visual input for understanding, including pre-readers, struggling readers, and English Language Learners.
Turn & Talk provides students with a partner with whom to share their comments and questions.
Gauge understanding by asking students to show a thumbs up if they fully understand, or a thumb to the side if they are still unclear. This also provides students some autonymity and autonomy with their response.
With individual white boards, students respond on their board and then display it for the teacher.

References:
Armstrong, T. (2000). Multiple intelligences in the classroom. (2nd Ed.) Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Bender, W. N. (2012). Differentiating instruction for students with learning disabilities: New best practices for general and special educators (3rd Ed.).
       Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Boushey, G. & Moser, J. (2014). The daily five: Fostering independence in the elementary grades (2nd Ed.) Stenhouse.

Gregory, G.H. & Chapman, C. (2006). Differentiated instructional strategies: One size doesn’t fit all. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Hall, T. E., Meyer, A., & Rose, D. H. (Eds.). (2012). Universal design for learning in the classroom: Practical applications. New York: Guilford Press.

Hallermann, S., Larmer, J., & Mergendoller, J. R. (2011). PBL in the elementary grades: step-by-step guidance, tools and tips for standards-focused k-5
        projects. Novato, CA: Buck Institute for Education.

Kaplan, P., Rogers, V., & Webster, R. (2008). Differentiated instruction made easy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Larmer, J., Ross, D., & Mergendoller, J. R. (2009). PBL starter kit: To-the-point advice, tools and tips for your first project in middle or high school. Novato,
       CA: Buck Institute for Education.

Riley, J. L., McKevitt, B., C., Shriver, M. D., & Allen, K. D. (2011). Increasing on-task behavior using teacher attention delivered on a fixed-time schedule.
       Journal of Behavioral Education, 20, 149-162. DOI: 10.1007/s10864-011-9132-y.

Simonsen, B., Little, C. A., & Fairbanks, S. (2010). Effects of task difficulty and teacher attention on the off-task behavior of high-ability students with
       behavior issues. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 32(2), 245-260.

Resources:

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