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Strategies for EngagementAnnotated Bibliography:Building a Relationship with Students:Educator’s Guide to Preventing and Solving Discipline Problems: Chapter 1, Developing Positive Teacher-Student Relations by Mark Boynton and Christine Boynton: Forming Positive Student-Teacher Relationships: Positive Relationships by D. E. Campbell: positive Behaviour in Manitoba Classrooms: Positive Relationships: Engagement:Engaging Students and Re-engaging Students in Learning at School Simple Strategies for Re-engaging Students Students in Learning: Key Actions Boys: Powerful Possibilities for All Learners: Engaging Boys through Boy-Friendly Teaching and Learning Practices/Strategies By Gina Holland Speaks Louder Than Words: Improving Student Engagement Strategies:Building a Relationship with Students: Student Inventories: Fun and quick way to have written documentation of student’s likes, dislikes, and personality. Questions can range from “What do you want to be when you grow up?” to “What do you need me to know as your teacher?” This allows the student a safe place to express their own feelings and give the teacher insight into their personal needs.Ex:Student Interest Inventory Name: ________________ Class: _________________1. What do you like to read if you have the choice? (newspapers, internet, books, magazines, etc….)2. What do you enjoy most in school right now?3. What did you do over the Christmas break?4. What is the one thing you love to do that is fun for you?5. Favorite Music/Bands/Musician?6. What is one thing you feel you are good at (hobby, sport, skill, interest)?7. Career goal?8. What are the qualities of your best friends that you like?9. Do you have access to the Internet at home?10. For your information as my teacher, you should know…. (worries, challenges, illnesses, work, allergies, loss, pet peeves, sources of laughter, rants, and wishes)Question of the Day: At the beginning of the day, during attendance is easiest, ask the class a personal question that each student is to answer. If the students feel uncomfortable with the question they may pass. The teacher is to answer the question too. Never ask anything you would be afraid to answer yourself. Everyone likes talking about themselves and this allows the class to express their own opinions while also hearing those of others. Kids usually get pretty excited about this and often want to come up with question ideas themselves. Because they are personal questions and not skill based most kids feel comfortable answering even if they do not usually answer questions during class. This allows students to share themselves with the teacher and vice versa and can act as a building block for relationship development. It shows that the teacher is interested in them and their lives. The questions are often fairly simple but aid the getting to know each other process and help students to become more comfortable speaking in class.Ex:What did you do over the weekend?If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?How many siblings do you have?What is your favourite animal?Etc.Questioning and Opinion Discussion: Asking opinion based questions in class can be a great way to get discussion flowing and are easier for some students to answer than fact-based questions. Ask them their opinions about events in Social class, characters in ELA, and what will happen in Science experiments. Ask them what they would do in the shoes of someone you are studying. Encourage personal responses and use them to guide discussion. Make every student feel that their opinions are valid and important in the classroom.Sense of Humour: Joke around with your students and allow them to joke around with you. Nothing set’s people at ease or makes people feel comfortable with one another like humour. If you can make lessons funny they will be memorable.Involve Students in Decision Making: This is their classroom too so involve them in the process of forming classroom community, rules, and decisions. Naturally, the teacher should always be in charge but it helps to involve them as much as possible. Make sure they feel heard and feel as responsible for maintaining the classroom community as you. Ask them what sort of rules a good classroom might have and allow them to make suggestions. When they are active participants in the classroom they will feel responsible for it and this will aid their sense of belonging and self-esteem. Positive Verbal Reinforcement: In terms of preventative and enduring classroom management and discipline positive verbal reinforcement is vital. Negative reinforcement is easier for the teacher to implement (and is necessary at times) but positive reinforcement is more affective overall. Students need to hear what they are doing well as much as possible. This will improve their self-esteem as well as their relationship with the teacher. Have students do little tasks around the classroom and immediately thank and praise them for jobs well done. If they give a correct answer in class praise them for it immediately and thank them for their contribution. If they provide an incorrect answer still praise them for the effort and thank them. This will encourage involvement as a positive thing. Student Engagement:Physical Activity: For young boys in particular, physical activity can be a wonderful tool in aiding engagement. It keeps them alert and focused on their lessons. Physical Activity transitions can break up the monotony of a lesson and refocus students as you move from topic to topic or subject to subject. Try to involve movement and activity anywhere you can in your lessons.Ball-toss Answers: Personal fidgets can work nicely to keep students on task but group activities such as this can act as a fidget for the entire class. To get discussion flowing toss a ball to students as they answer (be sure to lay out strict rules in terms of throwing a ball around a classroom such as: don’t throw the ball at anyone’s head, toss nicely and don’t whip the ball across the room, etc.). With a flying object zooming around the classroom, students are bound to pay a little more attention. This is a great way to do review and question periods. Make sure to congratulate correct answers and guide incorrect answers into right ones using hints and clues.Snowball Fights: Kids love doing what is considered unexpected within the classroom environment. Throwing balled up paper at each other or the teacher is incredibly exciting and memorable for them. This is a great way to do pre or formative assessment. Ask students what they know about a certain topic such as “What is democratic government?” before you have explained it. Ask each student to write down their guess on a piece of loose-leaf and instruct them not to write their names on it. Make sure to express that there are no wrong answers at this point, just give it their best guess. Once they have all written down an answer have them crumple the paper up and then have a controlled snowball fight where they are throwing the paper “snowballs” at each other for a good couple minutes. Then call them back in and instruct that everyone should pick up a snowball. It does not have to be their own. Have each student read an answer on their snowball. This allows for their guesses to be anonymous so no one feels insecure about their answers and encourages them all to give answers. This can lead into a discussion about the correct answer and gives them the opportunity of coming to that answer as a class.An alternative snowball activity can be done at the end of class. In the case of a practice activity that will not be taken in for marks (math worksheets, for example) especially one the students have found difficult but persevered through, have them ball up the worksheet and throw it at you all at once. (Again, be sure to have specific rules and parameters surrounding this activity such as all snowballs must end up in the recycling bin.) This acts as a fun and unusual reward that they will definitely remember. It doubles as a relationship improvement strategy as it allows the students to have fun with you and do something out of the norm.Roleplaying: Have students act out certain concepts using memorable hand motions which they can refer back to during tests. This gets them involved physically in concepts and aids memorization kinetically and visually.Relatable contexts: Everything is more memorable and engaging if we can relate to it. Try to relate whatever you are doing to a context they can understand. Relate mathematics to money or Social Studies to their personal experience. Try to bring everything to their own frame of understanding while extending that frame with new ideas. Ex: Cause of the American Revolution – Importance of representation within government: Imagine your school somehow amassed a gigantic debt it could not pay. To solve this, the teachers collectively decided to start taking your lunch money to pay off the debt. How would you feel about this? Is it fair? Did the students get a say? What would you do when faced with this situation? Etc.Twitter/Facebook Status: In the age of social media this is a quick and easy way to relate topics to students and extend understanding. Have them write a tweet from the perspective of an individual you are studying in Social or compile a Facebook profile for a character in a novel study. Interest: Interest can be a powerful motivator. If students are interested in particular topics and enjoy what they are learning they are more likely to engage with the material on a memorable level. Games: Games are an easy way to help students practice skills without them even realizing. Have them play Monopoly in Math class to teach adding and subtraction skills, Risk in Social Studies to develop their sense of how battles, strategies, and conquest works, in Science use Bop-it to teach forces such as torsion, tension, shear, and compression or use Mousetrap when introducing Rube Goldberg Machines. Invent games of your own to help them through concepts or have them create their own while reviewing. Journals and Personal Reflection: Carefully crafted questions through journal entries and personal reflection can encourage students to think about their learning and opinions. Again, they are called to bring their own opinions and experiences into answers making learning more personal and engaging. Journals are not just for LA class. You can have them journal about the outcome of an experiment in Science, respond to events in history, or even reflect on their latest math class. These are personal and private places for them to develop their knowledge as well as their writing skills. ................
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