Active Engagement

The ability to engage students in the learning process is what separates the truly fabulous teachers from the teachers who really struggle to control their class.  This is not quite as simple as it sounds. The teacher has to take into account the dynamics and interests of the class, while covering a tremendous load of information.

I absolutely loved the techniques Mrs. Heaps' used to keep the class engaged. On one particular day, the class was studying addition and subtraction. Mrs. Heaps' called up 10 students to create a human number line.  Those darling little students were bouncing up and down in their seats with eagerness to be called up as part of the number line.  This encouraged the students to behave themselves, for Mrs. Heaps would only call on the students who sat quietly with their arms folded, and it personally engaged roughly 3/4th of the class.  To make the number line even more fun, Mrs. Heaps used her friend Mr. Frog to bounce from the heads of each number on the number line.  Even I ate up this delicious lesson. The children were absolutely thrilled! 

In Mrs. Brown's class, the children were always working in groups when I came into the class.  The activities they did were engaging, however, I noticed that without an adult figure constantly hovering over the activity a couple of the students were not engaged enough with the material to work on it on their own.  This happened when I was in elementary school as well.  Despite the fact that the worksheets were generally pretty fun (color this leaf, cut and paste the letters under the right umbrella, write your name on the whiteboard with different color markers, ect..), it is difficult to ensure that all of the students are working.  With a group this young, this group activity may be more about teaching the students how to work in groups and focus on their assignment.  Although many of the students did work rather well on their own. 

If there is one thing that is certain, engaging all of the students in a classroom, with different interests and abilities, is a very difficult task that every teacher must master.