Stanford Teaching Commons: Activities to Boost Student Engagement

Group Of People At Their Graduation Rites

Today, while reading Sarah Rose Cavanagh’s article “How to Make Your Teaching More Engaging” — because hey, that’s something I need to do! — I followed one of the links which led me to these learning activities, posted in the Stanford Teaching Commons. Maybe you’ve used some, like Think-Pair-Share, maybe others you’ve never heard of. In my opinion, they are all worth checking out!

I believe that a large part of teaching is to inspire students. After all, we became teachers in part because we were inspired by other teachers. Also, we chose to teach our particular subject because there was something about it that made it stand out. Thus, it is our responsibility as teachers to make our classes engaging for our students.

See below for Activities to Boost Student Engagement, from the Stanford Teaching Commons:

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Case Method Teaching

Coached Problem Solving

Collaborative Learning

G+ Hangout sessions

Guided Discovery Problems

Just-in-Time Teaching

Online Forum Discussion

Problem-Based Learning

Project-Based Learning

Remote Labs

Retrieval Practice

Role-Playing

Send-a-problem

Team-Based Problem Solving

Think-Pair-Share

Helpful Printables, Checklists, and Resources for the First Few Days of School

Assorted-color Pencils Forming Circle on Brown Surface

This resource is the best: The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry and Rosemary Wong

Hall Pass with Quotations for Math or Science Class (Thanks to Mr. Benoit and Mr. Alvarez for sharing their hall pass templates! I simply added some quotations.)

First Week Feedback — a great way to check in with and get to know your students. (Source with context and suggestions: SaraVanderwerf)

Responsive Classroom Checklist for Organizing Your Classroom

Responsive Classroom Printables

Brain Breaks

Math Specific

Teach Dice Ornament on Table

Free stock images found via Pexel and Pixabay. No photographer name available.

Classroom Management: Restorative Questions

The questions below come from this video from the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence:

https://gandhiinstitute.org/

Question 1: What happened?

Question 2: What were you thinking at the time?

Question 3: What have you thought about since?

Question 4: Who has been affected? How?

Question 5: What do you need to do to make things right?