Preventing Classroom Challenges: Student Engagement
3 Quick & Practical Strategies to Increase Student Engagement
Classroom management challenges can drain your energy and shake your confidence. Getting students involved is a game-changer. Research illustrates over and over again that increased student engagement leads to improved academic outcomes and reduced levels of challenging behavior. This post offers 3 very achievable, clear, practical strategies to increase student engagement which is evidence-based to prevent challenging behaviors.
Below are quick, low-hanging fruit types of skills you already have. Dial up the volume on these to set the stage for more improvements we will describe in later blog posts.
Increase the number & type of Opportunities to Respond (OTRs) to increase engagement and reduce challenging behaviors.
When I go to a classroom and count the type and variety of Opportunities to Respond (OTRs) being used, typically a teacher is using 2 types and the number of opportunities to respond are between 2 and 8 in a 20 minute lesson. Dialing that up means increasing the variety and frequency.
Variety of OTRs
Mix up with many different types of OTRs - especially if you can repeat a question several times with different types. This offers opportunities to respond for all students in ways that can facilitate their learning, even if they are listening to another's answer and then using that listening to answer the same question themselves. This is STILL LEARNING.
Types of OTRs:
Choral Responding
Answering a Verbal Question
Non-Verbal responding (thumbs up/sideways, writing answer on white board and showing)
Physical/spatial (move to, stand up if.., hands on head if you think...)
Turn & Talk, Dyad, Peer to Peer (quick turn around on these - not long discussions during instruction)
Demonstrate a Skill
2. Frequency of OTRs.
Taking a count of your OTRs now, and setting a goal to increase them is the quickest way to increase student engagement (and reduce problem behaviors!). Start with your own current levels and turn it up! You already do this - just increase it.
3. Connections Count
Make lessons relatable.
When students see how topics apply to their lives, they become more interested.
When students see themselves and their community in their lessons, engagement and learning increase.
Adjust and modify your lessons to include stories of local community members, examples based in applicable projects, and updated references that resonate with your students in the current era.
Student engagement is not only important to academic outcomes, research shows that higher levels improve classroom behavior. Stay tuned for tips on preventing and addressing challenging behaviors when they do happen.
Citations available: email katie@vigeobx.com