Doodling on a piece of paper, drifting away, and lack of focus, there are a lot of indicators that make it easy to spot and analyze students' demotivated behavior. Then how do you motivate them and create a fun learning environment to engage students? Incorporating various teaching strategies in the classroom is pivotal to ensuring student engagement. Well, let's dive into the top teaching strategies which will fill your classroom with positivity and encouragement.
Top 10 Teaching Strategies
1. Encourage healthy competition
As a teacher, it is your responsibility to make sure that the students are not bored or tired with your lectures. Therefore, to enhance student engagement, you must encourage a healthy competition between classmates who can be involved in a mini-debate competition or compete with each other by answering the teacher’s short quizzes at the end of the session to earn bonus points. This helps to create a friendly atmosphere in the classroom and encourages students to participate actively.
2. Classroom Breaks
Let's be honest, classes can get mundane and drab. It is important to give short breaks to students in between classroom sessions to give them a kick-start in their learning routine. This can be followed by a short warm-up session or a workout activity which will develop students’ interest in the particular subject as the teacher will never make the class boring.
3. Use technology
In today’s learning atmosphere the use of digital technology helps to create a fun and engaging environment in a classroom. Therefore, if you’re a teacher who’s struggling to find several ways to involve students in classroom lessons, you should try a different approach to teaching by teaching via animations, or short videos. Students get to engage and involve in short videos and learn faster rather than learning through verbal lectures.
4. Interactive sessions
Mostly, teachers think that making a class interactive will prevent students to concentrate on the lecture. However, this isn’t true. Implementing interactive activities engages students in learning which gives them a break from classroom lectures. Hence, you can make class interactive by encouraging students to participate in short debates, quizzes, or brainstorming sessions. This will help a teacher analyze how much a student has grasped the lectures and learned with focus.
5. Solving puzzles
Students develop their problem-solving skills and analytical skills by engaging in production games. Hence, to keep students focused and develop their thinking abilities and skills, a teacher needs to involve them in short activities in the form of solving puzzles or crosswords. It will improve children’s critical thinking skills and encourage them to concentrate better in classrooms knowing that there is always a game session at the end of class to motivate them.
6. Storytelling sessions
Stories stay in the mind of students for a longer time than ordinary lectures. Therefore, using the story-telling method will give students a better understanding of concepts and engage them by developing interest via a not an ordinary way of learning in classrooms. Therefore, you can use short videos or use an exciting way to deliver lectures to prevent students from losing focus from the topic.
7. Group learning
Students prefer learning in groups rather than learning individually. Therefore, to keep students’ interest in lectures, teachers should form groups of students and ask them to evaluate their learning outcomes at the end of every session. Students who work in groups show improvement in their confidence, communication skills, and learning abilities.
8. Start sessions with an open-ended question
Open-ended questions give the students time to explore their creativity and encourage them into learning. This helps students to enjoy the learning topic which engages them in the main concept.
9. Laughing with students
Yes, you heard that right! Laughing with students tends to strengthen the bond between a teacher and a student. If you want your students to concentrate in class, build better relationships with your students. Identify gaps where you connect with them. Understanding your students and building a rapport is key to making the learning environment positive.
10 Positive body language
Children absorb the energy in their surroundings. Therefore, if a teacher compliments them or smiles at them, they start to like the classroom atmosphere and learn better.
To wrap it up, engaging students in a fun-loving environment encourages them to be involved in classroom activities and maintain their focus. If you want your students to remember you as a
‘Fun-loving teacher’, now is the time to implement these hacks to gain the support of students.
Suggested Read: What is Whole Brain Teaching?
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