Bryan Fiese’s 10 Rules of Student Engagement
Engagement begins with a smile at the door.
Arrange classroom seats using a semi-circle or U-shaped setup.
Start out the beginning of the class period gaining rapport with students. Ask questions, share stories about things that relate to the topic of the day.
Deliver all lessons with enthusiasm. (Voice shifts, pauses, body language).
Use supporting technology 55% of the time
Facilitated learning- students should be talking 80% of the time.
Delivery information and instruction using NLP (audio, visual, kinesthetic
Help students using their specific brain function. (Brain plasticity)
Set an attainable goal for the period.
Remember CHANGE IS GOOD – Keep the students wondering what’s happening next!
Source: Motivated Teacher,www.motivatedteacher.com .
Effective Steps for All Learning Styles, Attention spans and Processing speeds:
Students need consistency in their digital technology usage in the schools. School policies matter and need to be enforced across and within grade level environments.
Students experience FOMO (Fear of missing out) so strongly that they will be sneaky just to keep up with their social media and communication in the school day. They're willing to suffer the consequences if caught.
put binders on desk to high phones.
put phone case upside down on desk but phone is in lap (yes, that happened!)
have multi-pages open for easy flipping
lunch room access
Turn down phone brightness so you can't see reflection in eyes.
etc.
Students tend to transition to their technology for communication in down times during class. Keeping things moving helps lesson the distraction, as well as strong class supervision and enforced expectations.
Some phone apps can help students stay on task if processing challenges and ADD are evident (BuzzTimer - free).
Stay abreast of GenX tendencies and use them to your advantage. 8 second sound bites, participation in the facilitation process (ex: Social Studies videos), positive affirmation, engaged learning not lecture-style, etc.
Do integrate periods of extended reading on topic where students can engage their multi-tasking mindset via note-taking and annotations. Digital reading on independent devices works well as long as texts, etc. aren't coming through. (use school technology)
Use physical, not digital, agenda systems for students who need organizational structure. See Research: Productivity.