http://www.edutopia.org/student-engagement-resources
Related: Pedagogy • Motivation35 Educational Resources to Encourage Inquiry & Inventive Thinking This is a sponsored post. I’ve scoured the internet, including all of my favourite social media sites, to bring you a fantastic collection of online inquiry and inventive thinking resources that I know will inspire and motivate both you and your students. The collection includes Lego, science, practical activity ideas, engineering, videos, animation, technology and a tonne of fun facts – so there is sure to be something for everyone! Sean Kenney Lego Certified Master Builder’s YouTube Channel: Best-selling author and artist, Sean Kenney, uses LEGO toys to build anything and everything you can imagine.
Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves Editor's Note: This piece was adapted from Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond by Larry Ferlazzo, available March 21, 2015 from Routledge. My previous post reviewed research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and described the four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance. In this post, I'll discuss practical classroom strategies to reinforce each of these four qualities.
FUN Critical Thinking Activities For Students in Any Subject The experts on STAAR, such as the Texas Education Agency, the Lead4Ward team and Regional Service Centers tell us that there are some very specific things that we need to do, and other things we should let go of in order to prepare our students for the state assessment. In addition, these strategies can also deepen and broaden their knowledge. Social Media for Teachers: Guides, Resources, and Ideas Although students are evermore connected to the social web, many of these networks remain out-of-class digital playgrounds where students congregate. In a 2014 survey of 1,000 teachers, just one in five said they use social media regularly with students. Of course, it can be a challenge to incorporate social media into lessons. There are many gray areas for teachers to navigate, like setting guidelines, accessibility at school, and student safety. But to help teachers navigate this ever-changing landscape of social media tools, here are some of the best guides on the web for four popular networks, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. More Great Reads From Edutopia
edutopia Videos can be an effective tool for teaching and learning English (or, for that matter, any academic subject) if used strategically and not as a "babysitting" device. My colleague Katie Hull Sypnieski and I wrote a previous post for Edutopia titled Eight Ways To Use Videos With English-Language Learners that shares instructional strategies for many kinds of clips. Here are a few of my favorite videos to use with those exercises. Video Playlist: Resources for English-Language Learners Watch the player below to see the whole playlist, or view it on YouTube. Mr. Eight Ways to Use Video With English-Language Learners This blog was co-authored by Katie Hull Sypnieski. This post is excerpted from their new book, The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools, and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners of All Levels. "I like the way you use videos with us -- you get us moving, talking, writing and speaking. The problem is you make us think too much." -- "John," one of our English-Language Learner students We can think of far worse things a student might say to us, and John's comment demonstrates our perspective on using video with English-Language Learners (and, for that matter, with all students) -- research and our experience show that it can be a very effective learning tool, but it has to be used as an active one.
Universal Design for Learning: An Introduction Universal Design for Learning aims to make modifications in three broad areas that together deliver a programme that will best meet the needs of all learners. In each area the barriers to success are identified and where possible removed or minimised. UDL identifies three essential Neural Networks that combine to produce effective learning, each network as a corresponding place in the learning process. Recognition Networks are the systems that allow us to gather information from our environment and we categorise and make sense of that. This is the ‘what’ of learning, the content and especially how it is presented.
7 Ways to Increase Student Engagement in the Classroom Infographic K12 Infographics Why do we want learners of all ages to be engaged during instruction? Because involved students learn more efficiently and are more successful at remembering what they learned. In addition, students who are engaged in learning are more likely to become passionate about learning in general. Student engagement is one byproduct of effective instruction that has major pay offs. The Thinker Builder: Step In, Step Out: A Strategy for Thinking Deeply About Text You're sitting at your guided reading table, your little group gathered around you, wide-eyed. Or are you the one who's wide-eyed? Sure, you know what you're doing, but maybe right now you're thinking your lesson plan doesn't fit the book like you thought it would.
4 Proven Strategies for Teaching Empathy Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy has the capacity to transform individual lives for the better while helping to bring about positive social change in schools and communities worldwide. In psychology, there are currently two common approaches to empathy: shared emotional response and perspective taking. Shared emotional response, or affective empathy, occurs when an individual shares another person’s emotions. An example from our own lives came when a group of friends joined Marcus as he crossed the finish line of a half-marathon—they threw their arms up just as he did, mimicking his stance. Individuals in an audience involuntarily mirroring a speaker’s smile is another example of this type of empathy.
Too Many Students and Not Enough Time Student learning and growth can become obscured by three obstacles that teachers may feel powerless to address: class size, overall workload, and instructional time. These are genuine concerns, so let’s take a closer look at each challenge and possible solutions. The Class Size Challenge Large classes are a difficult challenge faced by many teachers. Proponents of smaller classes point to studies that show achievement results, with the largest impact appearing to be on early elementary students. To a lesser extent, smaller classes can help English language learners and those who have large skill deficits.
Five Ways to Encourage Participation in Class Discussion My twelfth grade class is full of lovely young people. I'm quite enjoying every one of them. However, when it comes time for class discussion, most of them clam up, look at their desks, and silently hope that John will answer my questions. John usually complies, eager to expound on his thoughts. Sometimes, Sophie hops in, followed by Kendra for a final push. These three lovely students have a lot to offer, but it can't be the John/Sophie/Kendra show every day. low motivation - 7 resources for addressing low motivation If you teach in higher ed, you have probably experienced it. Despite your best efforts, your entire class seems to start experiencing a huge decline in motivation. What started out well, as you watched your students' curiosities be heightened, now feels like an attempt to lift something well beyond your capacity. You're experiencing “the dip,” and it is a common occurrence. You may very well not have done anything wrong, to cause this to happen.
12 Principles Of Modern Learning - 12 Principles Of Modern Learning by TeachThought Staff What are the principles of modern learning?