Whew! It’s been a year…
It’s shaping up to be a weird year…
It’s been a couple hard years…
HELP!
Past student engagement strategies just aren’t working now. What was successful last month definitely isn’t this month. In all honesty, I had almost completely forgotten my bag of tricks, let alone what was INSIDE it. Before, I always had the ability to pivot in the middle of a lesson-gone-bad and spin it into something pretty decent. This year – nope. It feels like I’ve got nothin’. In an effort to better engage my students, I’m rebuilding my teacher tool box. I made a list (and taped it to my desk!) of go-to strategies to help build student engagement and participation.
1. At the top of the list…
Blooket! I finally stumbled upon this awesome FREE site (I’m a bit behind, I know) and my students are OBSESSED! They want to play every day. However, knowing that too much of a good thing can be boring, I’ve limited it to the beginning of lessons to help pre-teach vocabulary structures.
2. Count down before answering
This has been a total game-changer in recent weeks. I have projected not just the questions I am asking, but also possible answers. After ensuring everyone understands all the words, then the magic begins! I ask the question to the whole class and tell them to think while I count down from 5 to 0 with my hand. For the first few questions, the entire class responds at the same time. For 3 more questions, students turn-and-talk to a neighbor (both sides and either in front or behind). At this point, I work in some PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers). Scaffolding in this way has led to a LOT more willing participation. I first learned about the 5 finger technique from Elicia Cárdenas in her 2019 Comprehension Online! presentation. You can watch Elicia in action in this video as well as find loads more amazing ideas!
3. If you can hear my voice, take a breath.
I saw this suggestion on a facebook group page, if you know who made it, please share. I would LOVE to give them credit.
For those classes that are just wound so tightly they feel like they could jump to the moon and keep on going, I have found that breathing really helps. I will say, in a normal voice, ‘If you can hear my voice, take a deep breath.’ Several students will join in. Then I repeat it and a lot more students join in. Usually by the end of the third deep breath, the whole class is busy breathing (and not talking). They understand this is their cue to pay attention. I don’t raise my voice or get upset. I benefit the most because I take the most deep breaths. You can find more benefits of deep breathing with your classes here.
4. Puntos = Cookies
I use points on the board to celebrate any kind of success in class and classes compete with each other. On any given day, I will announce that the points are done and declare a victor. The winners recieve homemade cookies or a cake of their choosing. They seriously want to win. And the fact that I make them something from scratch goes a long way!
5. Gallery Walk EVERYTHING
Check out this post by Ashley Mikkelsen for lots of ways she uses Gallery Walks. Honestly, until I asked the question on social media I didn’t even remember Gallery Walks existed. Man! Teaching amidst a global pandemic has made me forget so many amazing ideas that used to come so naturally to me.
How I used Gallery Walk to pre-teach vocab:
Participation is down it’s hard to know what they know. Enter Gallery Walk. I found 8 free images from Google to coordinate with my story. They weren’t screenshots, just images of gifts, doors, “magic,” Christmas decorations, Santa’s workshop, etc.
- Students walked around the room and wrote down exhaustive lists of everything they saw: colors, articles of clothing, objects, hair color, EVERYTHING.
- As a whole class, students called out words from their lists.
- Everyone added words to their lists.
- The final step was the exit ticket. Students wrote very thorough descriptions of each picture using all the words.
6. Four Corners
The words always, sometimes, almost never, and never are written on colorful paper in the 4 corners of my room. Then I ask a series of questions that can be answered with those 4 phrases. Students get up and move to the word/phrase that answers for them. This was a successful way to get a quiet class to open up a bit.
7. Call and Response
My go-to call and response is when I say, “clase” students respond with, “¿Sí, Señora?” This works beautifully most of the time. However, there are days when we all have super low energy. On those days, I hand out two colors of cards and instead of asking for anyone to use their voice they can hold a card in the air. One color is true and the second color is false. Other ways to nonverbally answer: thumbs up/down, stand up/sit down, move to one side of the room or other, write answers on a whiteboard.
8. AnneMarie Chase’s “Timer Trick”
This one is Ah-MA-zing!!! Read here and start getting control of your classes. Pure magic!
9. Bingo with a Class Text
These ideas came from a conversation I had this past summer with Mira Canion about a Bingo presentation she did at Central States back in 2015. These games work with just about any class text and I always instruct students to use the back of some other paper we’ve used in class (worksheet, quiz, whatever – reduce, reuse, recycle). Play each game for 3 in a row, 4 corners, and blackout.
Version 1: Students draw a large 9-square board (3 by 3 or tic tac toe board) and write 9 individual words, phrases, or complete sentences from the text in random order on their boards (or you can project a variety of words/phrases/complete sentences on the board and they choose 9). You read the text aloud. When students hear their word/phrase/sentence, they cross it off the board.
Version 2: Have a variety of sentences from your text prepared ahead of time. Project them and tell students to write 9 down in the squares. You print and cut sentences apart and place in a bag. Draw them out one at a time and read them aloud. (Bonus: once you have read all the sentences aloud – which means all students should have reached blackout – pair students, set a timer, and the first pair to write the sentences in order of the text wins!)
Version 3: Have 9 comprehension questions prepared, printed and cut apart. Ask the questions aloud. Students write down the answers in complete sentences in the squares. Then place questions in a bag, draw out one at a time, read aloud. Students mark off the correct answers as you read the questions.
Version 4: You NEED to read AnneMarie’s Thanksgiving Lotería post from guest blogger, Rita Barrett. Yes, Thanksgiving is over, but what an amazing way to use Bingo!! We did this in class and got lots and lots of reps of the “we” form.
10. Running Dictation
Here is an absolutely beautiful description from Keith Toda on how to use Running Dictation. I love, love, love this!
11. Stations
There are loads of resources on TPT for using stations. I have successfully used Kristy Placido’s Student Centered Novel Stations for a very wide variety of texts.
I have not used the next three but am CERTAIN they will be amazing.
They do come from Ashley Mikkelson, after all!
12. Corre en Círculos
This looks like an incredible way to get students moving AND thinking. I can’t wait to try it!
13. Reverse Running Dictation
Read the details here. Students work in pairs to match images with PORTIONS of sentences. So clever! And I love the idea of adding in more images than you need for the matching, so students have to put more thought into it. Brilliant!!
14. Tabata Timeline
This looks like a great way for students to interact with text. Ashley provides a video on how this SUPER low prep activity works. Check it out! Students write down 9 events from a story and cut them out. They mix them up, leave them on the desks, and walk away. Students have a copy of the text (on paper or projected on the board) and walk around to a variety of desks to put the boxes in order. You set a timer and for each round, the time gets shorter and shorter. Ashley provides variations on her site as well. This can literally work for ANY level of text!
Semester 2
There are about 18 weeks in second semester and I have 14 ideas (more if you count the variations!). Add in March Music Madness and you have an outline for a fun text-driven activity for each week of next semester. I’m busy adding this into my lessons right now and I can’t wait to report back on how everything went!
This year has been so much harder than anyone anticipated. I have talked to many friends from around the globe and we all feel the same way. I hope these ideas will help you to relax and find a bit of joy from your teaching again. Remember, YOU ARE WHAT THEY NEED and YOU ARE DOING ENOUGH.
