Are you looking for ways to increase student engagement in your classroom? Well, look no further. In this piece, we will discuss 10 activities that are guaranteed to boost student engagement in your classroom.
- Dinner Party: A small-group drama activity in which middle and high school students plan a guest list based on the content area they are studying through questions about guests and who might attend the dinner party. It can be used in all content areas.
- Electronic Alphabet Books: A teaching idea in which alphabet-themed text, created electronically, are filled with comprehensive research related to the content area.
- In My Mind’s Eye: A teaching idea in which students express their ideas through digital photography or film by choosing a content-related topic, discussing their project with the teacher, and then photograph or film their ideas.
- Lyric Summaries: A teaching idea in which students, in small groups, list what they think is the most important information they have learned. Each group uses their list to write a summary which becomes the new lyrics to a song the group has chosen. The group then sings their Lyric Summary for the class.
- Meeting of the Minds: A small-group drama activity in which participants, who are usually knowledgeable in history, science, mathematics, or literature, are interviewed by a “host.” It can be used in all content areas.
- What is Rapping for Review: A teaching idea in which students write rap songs to express their knowledge and thoughts about the content they have learned.
- Repeated Phrase Collaborative Poems: A type of poem written by students, usually in small groups, from three short passages they found particularly meaningful in a book chapter or a content-related novel. The students create a repeated phrase and insert it after each of the passages they have selected.
- Snapshots of History: A teaching idea in which students create a tableau—a representation of a scene with groups of people who are stationary and silent—using an image of a historical event and then write a narrative in the first-person from the perspective of a specific individual in their tableau.
- Student-Authored Electronic Informational Books: A teaching idea in which students write books to represent their thoughts as opposed to through a traditional report format. For example, the students explore a substantive aspect of their current studies and report their learning in an alternative form—through authoring a book.
- Student-Created Electronic Picture Books: A teaching idea in which students combine knowledge and creativity to represent their thoughts and content area research through non-traditional formats such as Electronic Alphabet Books and Student-Authored Electronic Informational Books.
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