10 Creative ways to better engage your students

Harvard Business Publishing Education outlines 10 strategies to engage students.

Student Engagement is an essential part of learning. As educators, we aspire to draw our students to meaningfully engage and participate in our online and/or on-campus classes. There is something wonderful about a learning environment that is buzzing with students enthusiastically discussing the subject's focus topic of the week or an online discussion board blowing up with posts from engaged students.

The goal of nurturing rich student engagement is an ongoing and difficult task. This recent article by Harvard Business Publishing Education by Assoc Prof. Pamela Kramer Ertel, outlines several creative strategies to better engage your students, whether they are in the classroom with you or Zooming in from afar. The article unpacks the strategies according to the following types of engagement: behavioural, emotional, cognitive/intellectual (van Uden et al, 2014), social and physical (Fredricks et al, 2004).

Behavioural Engagement: Establishing Rules, Routines, and Roles

  • Bounce Cards
  • The Lecture T-Chart

Emotional Engagement: Facilitating Joy, Connection, and Memories

  • The Ripple Method

Cognitive/Intellectual Engagement: Promoting Choice, Challenge, and Curiosity

  • Drama, Please!
  • IQ Cards

Social Engagement: Creating Connections with Students Through Collaboration and Sharing

  • Getting to Know You
  • Find Someone Who...

Physical Engagement: Making Movement Meaningful

  • Whiteboard Splash and Gallery Walk
  • Inside-Outside Circles
  • Origami Review Game

Ultimately, Prof. Ertel highlights that in order to keep our students motivated we as educators also need to remain motivated.

If you would like to further discuss the above strategies and/or the topic of student engagement, please feel free to reach out to BEL+T. "Learner engagement" occupies one of the central aims of BEL+T's DIAgram framework (https://msd.unimelb.edu.au/belt/quality/diagram) as a touchstone of quality teaching and learning experiences. Considering how engagement relates to other elements in the DIAgram--such as assessment, belonging and interaction-- remains a critical challenge.

References:

  • Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59-109.
  • van Uden, J. M., Ritzen, H., & Pieters, J. M. (2014). Engaging students: The role of teacher beliefs and interpersonal teacher behavior in fostering student engagement in vocational education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 37, 21-32.