Engaging Students (TPE 1 ) 

What does it mean to engage students and how do we keep them engaged? I understand that not every lesson is going to be enjoyable for ALL students. They all have their own unique interests and motivators but there is plenty that can be done to keep students invested in order for them to develop a deeper understanding of the concept and make connections. In my small group  Power Hour, I have been trying to get students to elaborate more on their writing. My initial thought after Spring break was "Great! I'll have them write about their spring breaks!" Little did I know that wasn't going to be the greatest idea. Some students didn't do much and if they did, they didn't want to share about it. Also the prompt itself was very open ended and students didn't know what to write. I would ry nudging them to elaborate by adding questions such as: who were you with? what did they day look like? They would add single word responses: Ellie. Sunny. 

For the next prompt, I gave them a fantasy question that they got more creative with: 'Last Friday you were given one wish by a magical panda. You tried so hard to make the wish positive but after the whacked-out events that unfolded over the weekend, you regret ever meeting that tricky panda. What did you ask for, and what happened?' They were consumed with their writing. A majority of my students love dark mysteries or scary tales that they were consumed in their writing and descriptions of the horrible events that unfolded. I saw their creativity soar and they were thrilled to continue their writing during power hour each day that week (TPE 1.1). 

When students were learning about adding and subtracting decimals, they thought: Why are we ever going to need to know how to add decimals? Money! Was the first and most obvious reason to explain the importance of decimals. The following day, we reviewed the important criteria necessary for adding decimals -- like lining up the decimal points. Then, I introduced Melissa's Bakery. I had created a bakery menu with many prices and word problems that included other students in the class' names. They were so thrilled to see their names in the different scenarios and they saw it as normal to be solving the same problems they were complaining about the day before (TPE 1.3). I realized that the simplicity of adding students names to word problems with real life scenarios makes them more thrilled to complete an activity and connect with the concept more deeply. Math itself can be a difficult subject to engage students in since a majority have a dislike for math that starts at some point in their elementary years. During a lesson on subtracting fractions, we encountered a subtracting fractions with borrowing problem in the last ten minutes of the lesson. I began teaching students the way I had learned it -- drawing visuals to represent my fractions. This wasn't working for everyone and they were feeling overwhelmed by the time we moved to our power hour time. I went home and began researching different methods for teaching subtracting fractions using borrowing and was so excited for the following day. I had students take deep breathes and told them, "yesterday was hard, but today is a new day and we can do this!" I could see that this new method was clicking for students and they were solving problems more quickly and confidently. It was completely different from anything I had seen before but it was working (TPE 1.8).    

Another moment that comes to mind is a science lesson I taught about the melting point of different objects. We discussed what melting point was by looking at an ice cube, volcanic rock, and butter. Students used sentences frames to write complete sentences comparing the different materials. When students were given the opportunity to experiment on their own, they made inferences about which material would melt the quickest, a piece of butter, a chocolate chip, a pebble, or wax using plastic container and hot water. They were set their stations and began making observations. Based on what they observed, they began reflecting on their inferences and wrote questions they had or changed their original inference. They were ecstatic to be in complete control of their station and determining why their experiment was or was not working (TPE 1.5). 

Lastly, students in this classroom had a passionate dislike for Wit and Wisdom. They would come into the class saying "ugghhhh. Why do we have to do Wit and Wisdom?" I distinctly remember the day I sent students off in small groups of four that I had created beforehand in order to read the remaining pages of a chapter in The Phantom Tollbooth. I wanted students to practice their fluency and had each student in each group play the role of one of the characters in the chapter. Some students got more into their roles than others but I had the biggest smile when I heard some of the boys playing the role of the old witch because they changed their voices to sound old, feminine, and evil. Their groups couldn't help but laugh as they read on. When we brought the class back together, we had had four student reenact the pages without reading directly form the text. (TPE 1.7)

I am continually looking for new ways to keep my students engaged in the classroom. But the top three that worked for me this semester were: using student interests, adjusting instruction, and promoting creative thinking.