If students are going to succeed, it is important that we, their teachers, engage them. Of course, the question then becomes, how do we do that? It sounds like a great idea, but when you are faced with row upon row of bored adolescents in a classroom lit from above by fluorescent lights, it can be easy to think that engagement is an ideal, best practiced in another classroom, at another school, where the paint is fresher and the computers are newer. I’m here to tell you that you can do it and it doesn’t have to be hard! Here are a few ways to start working with engagement in your classroom.

            First of all, find out what your students are interested in. One great way to do this is to give them a survey. This is particularly effective because you can guide their responses so that they mesh with things you are actually considering including in your curriculum. For example, since I currently teach high school English Language Development with immigrant students from a variety of countries, I tailored a survey to find out what they are interested in reading about. Since I have a fair amount of flexibility in terms of what readings I assign to them, I can then choose passages at their level relating to topics they are excited about. My students, as many high school students do, expressed a strong interest in music. Therefore, I built a short unit around that theme, including reading about music and making a presentation about a musician or music group that they enjoy. As their teacher, I was able to address a variety of standards, and they put in a great deal of effort because the subject interested them.

            Another important element in engaging students is offering choice. We can incorporate this into our classrooms in a variety of ways. With the project that I mentioned above, I identified some key language objectives, and then gave students a framework that would allow them to fulfill these in a few different ways. They had the option of making an oral presentation about a video, making a presentation about a poster, or talking about and performing a piece of music for the class. Although each project was different, each involved the same fundamental expectations. It’s not always possible to offer students choice, but if you can, let them make meaningful decisions about their learning.

            Furthermore, a key component of engagement is motivation. Students will be more motivated if they understand why they are doing something. Tying your classroom activities and lessons into outcomes that relate to students’ lives really is important. As part of the survey mentioned above I asked students to choose the things they most wanted to learn in our ELD class from a list of goals related to learning English. There was also a space for students to fill in goals not on the list. I tallied the survey results and talked with the class about them. Now I continue to relate our lessons and assignments to the goals that interested students at the beginning of the year. It has become an ongoing dialogue about how our class fulfills their learning needs.

            Additionally, I have students write down their learning goals for the week each Monday. When I first introduced this activity, I modeled SMART goals related to some of the commonly cited larger goals from the survey. Since then, I have been working with students to create SMART goals for themselves on a weekly basis. On Monday students look back at their goals from the previous week, write a brief evaluation about how well they accomplished their goal, and then set goals for the upcoming week. We talk about adjusting goals to be realistic and timely – if a goal from the previous week wasn’t met, was it too difficult or does the student want to try again? What might help them reach a goal if they try again this week?

            The above suggestions are just a few ways that we can engage our students. I have found that once you get these elements in place in your teaching routine they are not difficult to maintain, and they make an enormous difference in how consistently students engage in the class. Ultimately, this helps us reach our shared goal, which is to make sure students learn what they need to be successful in their future endeavors.