I am looking for new ideas for engagement. What are some ways that you keep all kids engaged and participating?? I use popsicle sticks, whiteboards, and thumbs/fingers. Any other ideas?:thanks:
I use partners. Each student is assigned a partner at the beginning of the year- they sit across from one another. Very often, I say something like, "Talk for 30 seconds to your partner about...(whatever I'm talking about at the time). " Kids know that if their partner isn't discussing with them, they are to raise their hand and let me know. It rarely happens. I walk around listening to the partners discuss and then ask low achievers, shy students, or students with low attention span to answer most often (after I know their answers will be correct from listening in on partner conversations.) I also pull students who frequently are inattentive up front to "help" with illustrations. For example, if talking about addition, they become part of an addend...if talking about sentence structure, they become part of the subject...if discussing vocabulary, they demonstrate the meaning of a word, etc. One thing that helps is calling on students randomly and not letting them off the hook, but rather helping them succeed. For example, if they can't answer the first question I ask, I then ask them a question I'm pretty sure they know the answer to and move them up slowly from there. If they know they may have to answer, they tend to pay attention more. I do allow them to "pass," but then I come back to them to repeat the correct answer once they've heard it from someone else or from me. I also use proximity control by moving near students who are often disinterested or distracted, use their names in examples, and "borrow" their books or papers to read from as I'm teaching over their shoulders. I'm interested in hearing what others do!
Oh, I forgot- I also use Yes/No cards for the kids to hold up and do lots of small group work with big chart paper and markers
