Approaches to Keeping Students Involved

Throughout the class, we have seen many examples of and types of presentations. We have had our topic presentations and multiple group presentations. After examining and comparing everyone’s throughout the semester, it is interesting to see which ones stood out most to me. If I were teaching a high school class I would consider looking at different techniques to keep students involved and engaged if I had to lecture.

Visual Aids:

Providing visual aids keeps students engaged by giving them something to look at while they listen in order to focus their attention. PowerPoint allows a teacher to summarize their points where providing visual aids such as pictures. Too much text is distracting and makes students pay too much attention to copying text and not enough to what is being said.

Prezi is also a really good visual aid. I haven’t messed with it much, but have been impressed with others presentations that I have seen. In Prezi the pictures and text are constantly moving, zooming in and out and creatively flowing from picture to text. The movement and interesting angles keep student’s eyes focused on the presentation. Prezi also lets you easily zoom into pictures to better show something of interest, or to zoom in on a quote for emphasis.

Adding video clips or sound bytes are another good way to spice up a presentation. Giving the students a new voice or sound to listen to keeps them alert. If the sound byte or videos are interesting they will focus them back into what is being discussed. Or sometimes it’s just nice to throw in a good comic or video that allows them to have a good laugh or provide an interesting view of the topic at hand.

 (Who doesn’t like a good Calvin and Hobbes comic?)

Staying Involved:

Keeping students involved by asking questions directly to the class or asking them to discuss the topic in groups is another good way to keep them focused. By discussing with their classmates they are able to articulate their own ideas, or all admit that they in fact didn’t read the reading ( you win some you lose some).

Hands on activities are also a great way to let students express their ideas. Any type of drawing, creating, even molding things out of clay helps keep students engaged. It also gives them a break from continuous listening and note taking. I had a teacher once in high school place giant pieces of clay on our desks. He then asked us to either to make a large figure or a small figure based on where we were sitting. Once made, he picked his favorite creations and reenacted a whole battle with them. I can remember almost every detail and it’s been six years. Random is always good, same with fresh and new ideas.