High-Leverage Practice 18: Instruction

I am going to discuss High-Leverage Practices as mentioned on the CEC website organized around four aspects of practice. I hope you will join in the conversation!

HLP18 Use strategies to promote active student engagement.

I think it is so important to keep students engaged in learning. If they aren’t engaged in learning, they tend to be disruptive because they are bored.

By keeping students engaged, there will be fewer behavior problems and more excitement about learning.

One way to promote student engagement is to make sure that they are active participants in their learning. It is important that they don’t just sit and listen to the entire lesson. Ways to encourage participation is to have class discussions, question and answer, fill out an anchor chart, or have students help model what is expected.

Getting into small groups will also help encourage discussions and conversation. By encouraging conversations, it will increase the understanding of complex concepts. 

Incorporating movement in a lesson will help keep students engaged. Having students do a dance or an exercise that teaches the lesson is very motivating. Having students jump on a life-sized number line for math facts is a great way to incorporate movement into the lesson.

Letting students create something new with their new skills or concepts can be very engaging. This makes students use their imagination and sometimes collaborative skills to make something. I don’t think we allow for creativity enough in the classroom.

I think by including movement in the lesson, it encourages student engagement. When students are moving around, they are paying attention better. Incorporating exercise or dance might help the more active students stay on task. Movement helps keep students from being bored or apathetic towards the lesson.

What are some ways that you promote active student engagement? Please share.

Photo by Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash