(For Heather Wolpert-Gawron's article, click here)
One of my personal areas of professional growth I hope to work on in the near future is student engagement. As a math teacher, I expose students to a content area that is often perceived as challenging and rigorous with little fun to found. In fact, if I'm being honest, it's easy to turn students off to mathematics if handled in most traditional ways. As a result, I am keenly mindful of ideas for fostering student engagement. In Heather Wolpert-Gawron's article titled "Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement," she analyzes the results of a survey given to 220 students and breaks down responses into 10 trending categories:
Many of these are fairly obvious. Students love to be active and socialize so it makes sense that combining these categories with mathematics in many ways would help command student interest. It also doesn't hurt that many experts agree that collaboration with peers is actually helpful in developing student mathematical thinking. In addition to these, it's no seceret that many of my students are visual learners and thrive when given a choice in assignments or learning style. While it still requires some indirect teaching, student autonomy can open the door to increased investment and interest in projects and assignments.
Other categories listed above, however, require more exploration. Notably what catches my attention are those that have nothing to do with actual instruction but rather keeping to a certain persona as a teacher. Attitudes can be contagious. If you love what you do students can pick up on that and are likely to be more open to learning something that you truly endorse. Next is "being human." I interpret this as simply being personable and understanding. I once heard the claim that "students don't learn from people they don't like" and from my short experiences so far, I believe there is some truth to it. If you conduct your classroom like a disconnected drill sergeant or keep an invisible wall between student and teacher, you're likely to hinder student engagement more than help it. Finally, and I think this may be one of the most important, understanding your students is paramount to being a successful teacher. Every student is unique and each possesses specific interests and learning styles. What better way to foster engagement than to cater to those factors?
One of my personal areas of professional growth I hope to work on in the near future is student engagement. As a math teacher, I expose students to a content area that is often perceived as challenging and rigorous with little fun to found. In fact, if I'm being honest, it's easy to turn students off to mathematics if handled in most traditional ways. As a result, I am keenly mindful of ideas for fostering student engagement. In Heather Wolpert-Gawron's article titled "Kids Speak Out on Student Engagement," she analyzes the results of a survey given to 220 students and breaks down responses into 10 trending categories:
- 1) Working with peers
- 2) Working with technology
- 3) Project based learning
- 4) Clearly love what you do
- 5) "Get me out of my seat"
- 6) Bring in visuals
- 7) Student choice
- 8) Understanding your kids
- 9) Mix it up
- 10) Be human
Many of these are fairly obvious. Students love to be active and socialize so it makes sense that combining these categories with mathematics in many ways would help command student interest. It also doesn't hurt that many experts agree that collaboration with peers is actually helpful in developing student mathematical thinking. In addition to these, it's no seceret that many of my students are visual learners and thrive when given a choice in assignments or learning style. While it still requires some indirect teaching, student autonomy can open the door to increased investment and interest in projects and assignments.
Other categories listed above, however, require more exploration. Notably what catches my attention are those that have nothing to do with actual instruction but rather keeping to a certain persona as a teacher. Attitudes can be contagious. If you love what you do students can pick up on that and are likely to be more open to learning something that you truly endorse. Next is "being human." I interpret this as simply being personable and understanding. I once heard the claim that "students don't learn from people they don't like" and from my short experiences so far, I believe there is some truth to it. If you conduct your classroom like a disconnected drill sergeant or keep an invisible wall between student and teacher, you're likely to hinder student engagement more than help it. Finally, and I think this may be one of the most important, understanding your students is paramount to being a successful teacher. Every student is unique and each possesses specific interests and learning styles. What better way to foster engagement than to cater to those factors?