How to Increase Student Engagement Ep. 24

August 9, 2023 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

How to Increase Student Engagement S. 2 Ep. 24

Listen to this episode to learn tried and true ways you can increase student engagement.

Show Notes:

Episode summary:

Do you ever wish that your students were more engaged, that they cared more about what they were learning or that they would take learning more seriously? If so, you might need to increase student engagement.

Let’s face it, it is more fun and less stressful to teach students who are engaged. When students are engaged, you have fewer behavior challenges. Your lessons run more smoothly, and you accomplish more in less time. Students complete tasks and turn in their assignments. They also remember more of what they learned. Does that sound like a dream? It’s possible. In this episode we’re talking about tried and true ways you can increase student engagement.

In this episode:

It is more fun and less stressful to teach students who are actively engaged. When your students are engaged, there are fewer behavior challenges. Discussions are fluid and energizing. Your lessons run smoothly and you accomplish more in less time. Students will complete tasks and turn in their assignments. They will also likely remember more of what they learned. The chances are that when students are engaged, they are also having more fun and enjoying learning!

What’s not to love about that?

We are always excited to talk about student engagement because few things are better in teaching than watching students when they are fully engaged in their learning.

Today we explore these 4 tips to increase student engagement in more detail:

First, take a lesson from the business world. Before you shut off the podcast, trust us on this one. You will understand why in just a few minutes. The second tip is build and activate a learning strategy toolbox so you can plan engaging lessons. We will also explore our third tip which is about switching up the learning environment. Finally, we will talk about the importance of adding joy to the classroom.

These 4 tips will help you to increase student engagement exponentially.

Engagement Tip 1: Take a lesson from the business world.

One of our favorite authors is Dan Pink, the author of Drive and A Whole New Mind , both which we have referenced on other podcast episodes, among other best sellers. In his New York Times bestselling book Drive- The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, Pink looked at four decades of research on motivation and then summarized into one book for business leaders to help them keep their employees motivated, satisfied, and performing at their highest levels.

What Pink learned has direct application to the classroom. Basically, in order for people to be motivated to work and learn and be engaged in what they’re doing, they must feel a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Once those three things are incorporated, motivation and engagement skyrocket and management issues decrease. Let’s take just a minute to talk about autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Autonomy

Autonomy means that students have some say in what they are doing or learning. They don’t need total control, but they need to make some of their own choices. This might be setting their own learning goals, choosing which learning materials to use, or choosing between several types of projects. You might give them a choice in partners or groups, a choice in tasks, or a choice in which book they read.

Students will still need some sort of accountability, but giving them some say in what they do will greatly increase the chances that they will do it.

Teachers are sometimes nervous about giving students control, thinking that they will lose control, but the opposite happens. Students don’t need ALL the choices, they just need some choices. Teachers can control the choices.

Daniel Pink offers this advice: Control leads to compliance, autonomy leads to engagement.

Mastery

The second thing that creates engagement is the opportunity for mastery.

Engagement leads to mastery. Think about it, did you ever really master anything without being engaged in it? We’ve all had the experience of memorizing something for a test, only to forget it the minute we walk out the door. That is not mastery.

Mastery is the ability to get better and better at something that matters. Our educational standards require students to master skills. What can teachers do to increase mastery?

Make sure tasks are not too easy or too challenging.
Give students time to get into flow, time where they can focus and work on a task uninterrupted.
Make work look like play. There is often joy in the pursuit of a goal. Have you ever been so involved in something that you lost all track of time? Learning and work and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive!
Encourage a growth mindset where students believe that with effort, they can get better and better at something.

For example, think of kids and gaming, where they work hard trying to reach the next level. Or think of adults with golf, or completing their step rings on their watch. It becomes a competition with yourself to keep getting better and better and reach the next level. It is why professional musicians who are at the top of their profession keep practicing for hours a day. It is also why athletes keep running, or keep shooting hundreds of baskets every day. They are going for mastery.

Purpose

The third aspect of motivation from Daniel Pink’s discussion is purpose.

When students understand the purpose for their learning, they are more motivated to learn. Students are less likely to engage when they view work as a waste of time. Can students answer the question, “why is this important?” If so, they understand the purpose of the lesson.

Tell students the objectives of the lesson. Share the outcomes. Show them the learning standard. However, that is not enough, standards can seem dry and unimportant without context. Make sure students know what they are going to learn. Tell them and post it on the board. For example, you could use this prompt:

“Today you are going to learn to…” Then make sure students understand how they will use this information or why it is important.

This piece creates relevance. When students understand how they might use something, or how it will help them in the future, or how it will improve their skills such as critical thinking or the ability to analyze, they will be more likely to buy in to the activity.

You could say, “Here are some of the ways you will use this information or skill in the future…”

Or, better yet, ask students how they think the information or skill will be useful in their future.

You can increase student engagement by paying attention to autonomy, mastery and purpose. It is not just a solution for the business world. It is also a powerful formula to increase student engagement.

Engagement Tip 2: Build an active learning strategy toolkit so you can plan engaging lessons

Are you using active learning strategies in your classroom? Teachers who are looking to build engagement are always adding new active learning strategies to their toolbox and then using these strategies when planning to make sure their lessons are engaging. A great active learning can usually be used in any curriculum area and across different grade levels.

We love active learning strategies and have written several blog posts with our favorite active learning strategies, all of which we will link in the show notes so you can have easy access to them. Most of our favorite active learning strategies can be completed in 10-15 minutes.

Here are four of our favorite active learning strategies:

Walk the Walls

This strategy works as a strategy to get students ready to learn new content or as a way to review what they have read or discussed. It is a good warm-up and generally takes 10-15 minutes.

Determine a set of 6-8 questions related to the day’s lesson. For example:

Which mammals have you seen in person? (3^rd grade science)

Why do you think enslaved people joined the confederate army? (9^th grade US History)

How do you think you would have reacted to finding an abused dog? (5^th grade reading)

What are some different ways to greet someone in Spanish? (1^st year Spanish)

Gather 6-8 large pieces of paper. Place one question on each sheet. Place the sheets on the walls around the room. Instruct students to take a marker or pen and walk around the room quietly writing their answers on each sheet. When time is up, discuss their answers.

Speed Dating (or for elementary students “Line Learning”)

Prepare a list of questions for discussion. The questions can help to introduce new content or review previously learned content.

Have students stand in two lines, facing each other.

Set a time limit, such as one minute. Determine which line will talk first and which line will listen. Ask a question. Students have one minute to talk about the answer with the person facing them. Then reverse speakers. For the next question, have one row move one place to the right so that each person is facing a new partner. The person on the end goes to the other end of the line. Repeat.

In addition to these strategies, remember you can always add small engagement elements to your toolbox and lessons as attention grabbers, community builders, and learning disguised as fun. For example, introduce a lesson on states of matter by playing music from the movie Frozen. Then conduct experiments with ice, snow, and water.

Engagement tip 3: Switch up the environment.

Too much time in the same environment can make anyone feel restless. New and unique environments can increase engagement dramatically. There are many ways to switch up the environment without abandoning your curriculum or academic standards.

Consider what you can do to switch up the environment:

Move to a different space for a lesson or a day- consider going outside. On beautiful weather days, if students are staring out the window longingly, let’s face it, you probably are as well! Consider how you could take all or part of the lesson outside. Or could individual student work portion of a lesson be done in the hallway? Could you go on a nature walk or use sidewalk chalk to practice spelling words or math problems?
Change up your classroom. Rearrange the desks. Add a reading tent in the corner. Make your bulletin board and interactive board where kids can engage with the classroom content.
Bring in more “things”. Let the students see, feel, hear, touch and maybe even taste what you are learning about. These can be used for manipulatives in learning and can help students see relevance.
Add “Walk and Talks”. Have students pair up. Give them an assigned topic to discuss. Often you can use the discussion questions you would have used with the entire class. Have them walk and talk in your school hallway or outside about the question for a minute or two, then switch partners. Bring them back to a large group to share their insights. Repeat as time allows. This activity is also great for language classes when students must talk in the language they are learning!

We do want to remind you to be clear and specific in setting your behavior expectations and directions when you switch up your environment. For example, you might say something like, “I know we would all like to work outside today. Before we can do that, I need you to agree to follow my rules and behavior expectations. First, while we are outside, you promise to focus on doing the work of the lesson. When I call for your attention, you promise to stop and listen to directions. If you do not follow these rules, we will immediately return to the classroom. Please raise your hand if you can agree to these rules.”

Engagement tip 4: Add joy to your classroom.

Joy helps students love learning. If students love learning, they will be engaged. Joy encourages creativity, which opens the door for creative problem solving. Joy encourages curiosity and self-motivated learning.

Here are just a few of our favorite ways to increase joy in the classroom:

Try to incorporate laughter into your lessons. Laughing reduces stress. Look for opportunities to inject humor into the day’s activities. Offer to tell a joke if students line up quickly and quietly. Get a joke book if you need one. Telling a joke takes less than 30 seconds and adds fun. We all remember a teacher who told corny jokes. Notice that we remember that teacher.
Add Music. There are songs that fit into all areas of the curriculum. Check out You Tube for songs about multiplication or grammar from School House Rock. Better yet, let students work in groups to write and perform their own songs based on their topic of study. Music brings about engagement and as a bonus, it also helps with retention!
Read funny literature. When you are reading aloud to your students or finding literature to incorporate into your lessons, look for and choose funny stories. When students have positive experiences with literature, they learn that reading is fun. If reading is fun, they will be more likely to do more of it.

Joyful classrooms are less stressful, less anxious places. Neurological studies have shown that students’ comfort levels can influence long-term information storage and transmission. Teachers and students face many challenges in today’s educational climate. Living without joy does not have to be one of them.

Recap:

We often hear that students today aren’t engaged. The days of “sit and get” learning are in the past. By understanding how autonomy, mastery, and purpose lead to motivation, and by following up with lessons that include fun and actively engaging activities you can increase students’ engagement and maximize learning in your classroom.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

4 Great Active Learning Strategies for All Content Areas

Mix and Match Active Learning Strategy

8 Simple Ways to Create a Joyful Classroom

How to Engage Students the Week Before Break

Spring Fever? Take Students Outside!

Related Podcast Episodes

Episode 2: What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Motivation

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

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Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?

If you are dedicated and caring but often overwhelmed and exhausted, join us at Inspired Together Teachers. We’ll give you inspiration, strategies and tips that help you navigate life’s challenges as a stronger, more confident, and more joy filled person, both in and out of the classroom.

Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.

Co-hosts Paula Schmidt and Michele Vosberg are award winning educators with the experience and skills to help teachers thrive in life and work. They’ve taught at all levels, worked with thousands of teachers, and conducted workshops around the world. They are also the authors of the #1 best-selling book The Inspired Teachers Journal: A Weekly Guide to Becoming Your Best Self.

Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to lived inspired lives.

The Power of Creativity Ep. 21

July 19, 2023 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

The Power of Creativity Ep.21

Listen to this episode to find our why creativity is a much needed skill and how you can nurture creativity.

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

What is the world’s most desperately needed skill and one that no one is talking about? Creativity! Creativity is wildly misunderstood but needed now more than ever. In this episode, we’re talking about why we need creativity and how you can get more of it.

In this episode:

Introduction:

Have you ever said something like, “ Oh, I’m not creative?”

Most people think of creativity as skills in art, music, writing, or drama. If you have a broader perspective, you might see that there is creativity in home design, architecture and landscaping.

But have you ever considered that you need to be creative in plumbing, or in medicine?

And what does creativity have to do with schools?

We all have the potential for creativity inside of us, and we need it now more than ever.

What’s the big deal about creativity? Why do we even need it? If you are starting to tune out because this topic is for teachers in the arts- stick around. In the next 20 or so minutes, we will make our case for the importance of creativity!

Quote:

“Art is seeing the world that does not exist… Civil rights activists are artists. Athletes are artists- People who imagine something that is not there.”

Ava Du Vernay, Film Director and Producer

Why we need creativity

Albert Einstein, a very creative thinker and innovator once said, “We cannot solve problems at the same level of thinking that we were at when we created those problems.”

Creativity is the ability to see things in new ways and bring together knowledge and experience to create things that haven’t existed before.
It is a skill, and one that we can all get better at with practice.
It involves being open to asking big questions- what if?…how could we?…how? What’s the purpose? What is the end result we need?
Creativity is the key to problem solving and innovation.

Our world has plenty of problems that need solving. So do our schools.

We need to be able to envision new ways to approach things, new, innovative ideas that can change our problems for the better.

The Expression of the arts is only one form creativity, the one we usually think of first.

Oscar nominated filmmaker Ava DuVernay said,

“Art is seeing the world that does not exist…Civil rights activists are artists. Athletes are artists- People who imagine something that is not there.”

Let’s take a look at a couple of real world examples of creative skills in jobs we would not ordinarily think of as “creative.”

Consider a plumber who skilled at diagnosing potential problems in a 100 year old house and overcoming them. He doesn’t know what is behind the walls until he gets in there. He needs to be able to combine old parts and new ones to make everything work correctly. He needs to understand the architecture of houses in different eras, and adapt as needed to what’s behind the walls. He also needs to understand the sequence of the work, and understanding the timing of it, for example who needs to come in first- the electrician or the carpenter?

Or consider medical professionals. They diagnose complex medical issues. It seems to be very scientifically based, with years of college work and residency and a lot of different facts and the use of data. But in the end, all the medical professional has is a bunch of different data points. Diagnosis is not always a simple thing. Medical professions have to sift and sort through data, get the patient’s experience and understanding of the problem and then make a diagnosis. That is very much critical thinking. It involves creativity.

Future jobs are going to require new types of work and new skills.

Future work will be more about being able to make complex decisions and use critical thinking. Technology and AI are already doing much of our work that does not need human technical skills. We have machines and robots that do many things, but we need skilled workers to creatively design them and to be able to program them.

Why is there such a lack of emphasis on creativity?

In one of the most watched Ted Talks ever, Sir Ken Robinson talked about the lack of creativity in schools.

Creativity is often associated with the arts, and as a rule, we don’t support arts as a necessity in this country. When the budget requires cutting, the arts are often the first to go.
We like our rules and procedures and benchmarks, steps and standards. Those things are not all bad, and they offer rigor, but we need both rigor and creativity. Creativity is often the opposite of those kinds of things- open ended, inquiry based and intuitive. These things tend to be collaborative, which tends to be difficult measure.

Think of making a cake. You need some established ingredients- such as flour, baking powder, and salt. The recipe gives us rigor, it is safe and offers a tried and true procedure.

But making a cake also involves creativity. What flavors can you use? What form will the cake take? What kind of frosting? How will you package, wrap or serve the cake?

The best bakeries invent new flavors and combine ingredients in novel ways. If you have ever watched baking shows on TV, you’ve seen the incredible artistry in cakes. There are 1000’s of Instagram accounts devoted to baking cakes and it is not all about the rigor, it is about the rigor plus the creativity.

What are some reasons why creativity is stifled?

We’ve been taught that there is one right answer- it is on the test and measured.
We encourage compliance in education, be quiet, do your work, don’t challenge the status quo. Children who ask too many questions or who argue against the rules or procedures are often considered disruptive.
Creativity takes time and exploration of ideas. We have too much to do and not enough time.
Creativity often involves being vulnerable. New ideas are often ridiculed. Or followed with “ We’ve tried that before.”

New ideas challenge us because it means change, and many people struggle with change. It is safer to stick with the status quo, do what you have always done.

In times of extreme change which requires more creative and innovative solutions, people often want to revert to some prior practices. Let’s just go back to the old ways- the ways we used to do it in the good old days. Let’s get rid of technology. Let’s go back to requiring the same books for every student. Let’s require a lock step curriculum so that every teacher will conform to the standards in the same way.

These things give a false sense of stability while ignoring that new challenges need new solutions. The genie is out of the bottle, and you can’t put it back.

Remember the first computers in schools? We needed to figure out how they could help us with instruction beyond Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. It was more than a novel amusement.

Then came cell phones in schools, do we find ways to use them? How? For the most part, we have not used what we know about problem solving and innovative ways to address students’ use of phones in the classroom.

For example, old cell phones can be used with QR codes to give students directions at learning centers. They can be stripped down and used with school wi-fi. That is using creativity to solve a problem.

Without conscious decision making around how we use cell phones in schools, the result is students’ unbridled use of phones at odds with classroom needs.

Now the new “threat” is AI in schools. The first reaction is, “they will cheat!” In many places the first instinct with new technology is “Let’s ban it.” Then we rethink how we could use the new technology. The real challenge is, how can we use these new technologies responsibly, ethically, and with critical thinking? That requires creativity and innovation.

Almost every school and business will say they value innovation, but they do not devote time and energy and learning into doing the kinds of things that innovation requires.

What are some skills and aptitudes that could help increase my creativity?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink explains the six high concept, high touch senses we need to dig into to develop creative synopsis in our brains so we can, as he says, “reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

These aptitudes are as follows: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. We all have these aptitudes, but in today’s world many of these muscles have not been used to their fullest capacity.

Design- consider moving beyond just the function of something, to the design of something. He suggests not just thinking about creating a product or a service but to also consider creating something that is beautiful, whimsical, or emotionally engaging.
Pink challenges us to move beyond just making an effective argument to telling a story. Nothing beats a compelling story.
Symphony- think about Symphony as putting all of the pieces together. Consider looking at the big picture and you may find a new way of seeing things.
Empathy- in a society that relies heavily on logic you can build upon your creativity by figuring out what makes your peers, friends, family, and students tick. Forging relationships and caring for others allows you to see things you may not be able to see if you only look at the world through a logical and analytical lens.
Play- we don’t always need to be so serious. Laugh, be lighthearted, play a game, explore your sense of humor. Yes, there are times to be serious but that does not need to occur as often as some of us think. Play makes us more relaxed and open, reduces stress and calms us, all things that lead to creativity.
Meaning- we live in a world where we accumulate lots of stuff. That often stifles our creativity because we don’t need to think of creative solutions. We don’t have to, the world has already given us thing that solve many of our problems. Take some time to look for true meaning. Whether that is in exploring your values, your spirituality, or your purpose, give yourself the gift of taking some time to find meaning to what you do.

How can we unleash our creativity?

We can all become more creative and that creativity is the key to the future. Here are some ideas:

Try new things. Encourage students to experiment without the need for perfection. Expand your horizons and broaden your world which exposes you to new ideas. Get out of your silo- talk to teachers of different ages, in different schools. Talk to people in other professions.
Use brainstorming. Allow all answers and in the initial brainstorming, encourage quantity or quality. Do not be quick to shut down new or outrageous ideas.
Use movement to facilitate thinking. Walk and talk. The body activates the brain to make ideas better. Physical movement can change the way we think. Take a lap around the school.
Get into flow. When we are involved in an activity and in the moment, we not only lose track of time and space, but we often open up magic. We see larger possibilities and we open up different parts of brain. Flow requires time and opportunity. It involves having choice of what you do and being allowed time to be in the work.
Engage with the work you are doing. In his book, Creative Schools, Ken Robinson says “Great teachers understand that it’s not enough to know their disciplines. Their job is not to teach subjects; it is to teach students. They need to engage, inspire, and enthuse students by creating condition in which those students will want to learn.”
By really engaging with the work you are doing, and the students you are doing the work with, you will see your creativity soar.
Challenge the status quo with real questions. Why are we doing this? Is there another way we could do this? What would happen if?… Listen and consider the questions. Don’t automatically shut down ideas.

Conclusion

We end our discussion on unleashing your creativity with his definition of creativity from Sir Ken Robinson:

“Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.” He further states, “in this world, there are many great schools, wonderful teachers, and inspiring leaders who are working creatively to provide students with the kinds of personalized, compassionate, and community oriented education they need.”

We hope you will take away these key points from today’s podcast: Creativity is a process. You have original ideas. Now you know to use your creativity to give value back to the world.

Recap:

Creativity is vital to not only the arts, but to problem solving and innovation. We can all become more creative and teach our students to become more creative as well. Our creativity may very well be our gift to the world.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Do Schools Kill Creativity? TED Talk Ken Robinson

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

Creative Schools by Ken Robinson

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

Download our FREE resource: The Inspired Teachers Guide to Taking Back Your Life.

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Increase Motivation with Your Word Choice

March 5, 2023 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Would you like to increase motivation in your classroom?

Most teachers would readily say “Yes” to that!

It can be a struggle to find ways to motivate students to do what we want. Teachers bemoan the fact that their students aren’t motivated.

Actually we are all, always motivated to do something. That something might not be what you want your students to do.

You can’t actually motivate anyone to do anything, but you CAN set the stage to increase motivation.

Here is a tip that you can quickly adopt in order to increase motivation and increase that chance that students will engage in the tasks you want them to do.

Replace the words “have to” with “get to”.

Think about the words you use when you speak to students. Language is important. The words we choose convey a message to our listener that can negatively or positively impact his/her perception of the task.

By replacing “have to…” with “get to…” in your daily language, you can send a subtle but very different tone and message to your listener. With this word substitution, you can easily change a negative connotation into a positive statement.

Here are some examples:

Here are some examples of how teachers can dramatically alter the tone of their conversations with students by substituting the word have for the word get:

“You have to read this book” sends the message that it is an unpleasant obligation to read the book. “You get to read this book” implies that reading this book is fun or a privilege.

“You have to work together” sets the tone that there will be downfalls to working in the group and sounds much less appealing than “You get to work together.”

“You have to do this project ” implies a tone of begrudgingly hard labor. “You get to do this project content” sounds much less brutal.

“You have to show your work (thinking)” sounds like you are forcing students to do extra work, but telling students they “get to show their work (thinking)” gives the impression that the student is able to let the adult into their secret thoughts.

Increase motivation by changing word choice in your classroom.

You can also use this word substitution to correct students when they speak. When a student states that they “have to” do a task, you can reply that “Yes, you get to do the task.”

If this still seems like only a silly word change, try this one out for yourself: “I have to go to work tomorrow” versus “I get to go to work tomorrow.” Which would you rather say?

Once you are aware of this language substitution you will catch yourself and others when they say they “have to” do something versus when they “get to” do something. You will be amazed by how quickly this one trick can increase motivation and even transform the culture of your classroom by helping students focus on the positive things they are doing.

You don’t “have to” try it out, but we certainly hope you “get to.”

Our best,

Paula and Michele

How to Combat Classroom Boredom

February 19, 2023 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Have you ever experienced classroom boredom?

We often think of classroom boredom as affecting students, but it also affects teachers. Winter can be an especially difficult time for teachers and students. It’s been a while since a school break, and spring break can seem far away. The colder weather, lack of sunshine, and shorter days can lead malaise that can seem impossible to escape.

Classroom boredom can zap the energy out of your lessons and your days. When you are bored, teaching is less fun and seems to require more work. When students are bored they aren’t engaged and classroom management issues are more likely to occur. Boredom is often contagious and when you see it or feel it, it is time to take action.

Here are some ways to bring new and fresh energy to your classroom:

Shake up your daily routine.

Have you developed a daily classroom schedule that has served you well in the past but has now become stale? You may have been teaching the same thing in the same way for years and it has become a bit tired. We all get bored with doing the same old thing every day.

Try a new routine. For example, if you usually start with a review, then introduce new content, then give time for students to practice, switch the order. Introduce the new content, then ask students to connect it to previous content. If you teach reading, then math followed by science, rearrange the order. Try it for a day or week and see what happens. You don’t have to keep the new routine forever, but often a small switch can bring some new energy.

Add variety in your lessons.

Make sure your lesson plans have a variety of activities in each lesson. Start with a short 5-minute video. Then have a ten-minute discussion. Follow that with a small group activity.

Look for new ways to actively engage your students. Focus on hands-on activities, lively discussions, or group projects. Try new games, puzzles, or role playing. Act our scenes from literature or social studies content. Students enjoy Readers Theater, an activity that can be used at all grades and across all curriculums. To learn more about Readers Theater, see our previous post here.

There are many active learning strategies that can get students up and moving and actively engaged. Read 4 Great Active Learning Strategies for All Content Areas for ideas such as a Wall Walk or a learning in a Speed Dating like format.

Use technology in new ways.

Divide up a textbook chapter and let students share their learning by creating something with technology to show their learning. Curriculum can come alive when students are allowed to make a video, illustrate a cartoon book around the content, script a newscast or write song lyrics to demonstrate their understanding of content material. Students will also come up with their own ideas about how to show and share their learning.

Feeling adventurous? Let students experiment with AI technology such as CHATGPT. AI is here, whether we like it or not. Ultimately, teachers will have to understand it, incorporate it, and teach students to curate the content in responsible and effective ways. One fifth grade teacher in Kentucky instructed his students to try to outwit the bot by figuring out which articles were written by the bot. Could you take baby steps towards understanding and using AI technology?

Build in relevance.

When our work seems meaningless, we become less engaged and less motivated to do it. Rethink lessons in terms of relevance. When writing lesson plans, put on the perspective of students and see if you can answer questions such as, “so what?”, “who cares?”, and “what does this have to do with me?”. Bring in real world examples and have students connect the material the material to their lives. Then give them tasks which allow them to apply the material in meaningful ways.

Relevance will help to increase motivation, encourage students to think critically about the material, and can help create a more engaging learning environment.

Plan outdoor activities.

Not only does outdoor time provide an opportunity for students to get some much-needed fresh air, but it also helps provide a break from the indoor classroom environment. Consider things like organized outside games at recess or outdoor team building activities. You could take students outdoors for a winter related science activity like looking at animal tracks or studying the effects of temperature on water, snow and ice. Students could spend a short time outdoors as inspiration for a writing session.

You may not think of winter as a time for outdoor activities, but once you think about it, you will likely be able to think of ways to incorporate the outdoors into a lesson or two. During the early days of the pandemic, many teachers took advantage of the outdoors for more space and distance. Is there something from that time that you could reincorporate?

Give it a try! Plan an outdoor activity and see if the change of pace and a new environment help create a more positive learning environment.

How can you combat boredom in the classroom?

Varying routines and activities, considering new ways to use technology, ramping up relevance and heading outside, are all things to try. You will likely have additional ideas and when you become aware that things are getting boring you can consider it an opportunity to rethink your plans. Sometimes small shifts can have big pay offs in terms of teacher and student engagement.

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Free Teacher Resources You Can Grab Right Now

December 15, 2022 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

Did you know that we have a lot of great free teacher resources here at Inspired Together Teachers?

As our Christmas gift to you, we have eight freebies you can grab right now linked below.

If you want to do some inspirational reading over the Christmas break, we’ve got a list of 25 of our favorite books about teachers.

The number one thing teachers tell us they need is help with motivation and classroom managment. We’ve got a great guide for you!

Speaking of classroom management, did you know that how you phrase things makes a difference in how students respond? We have a great list of phrases you can use for better classroom management.

Here is a link for our favorite lesson plan template EVER. It is a recipe for an actively engaged lesson!

Read more about it here and then grab the template!

The Lesson Plan Formula of Your Dreams

Every teacher needs quick and easy formative assessments. One of our favorite’s is 3-2-1. Get a reproducible handout to use in your classroom.

Wondering how you can best use differentiation in your classroom? We’ve got a guide that gives a great overview of how to differentiate and then gives you specific examples of differentiation in action.Who doesn’t need that?

One of our reader’s favorites is our parent-teacher conference planning template. Why not get ready for your next PT conferences?

Looking for a teaching job? Get our guide for how to ACE Your Teaching Interview.

We hope you enjoy these free teacher resources!

Happy Holidays!

Our best,

How to Increase Student Engagement S. 2 Ep. 24

Listen to this episode to learn tried and true ways you can increase student engagement.

Show Notes:

Episode summary:

In this episode:

Engagement Tip 1: Take a lesson from the business world.

Engagement Tip 2: Build an active learning strategy toolkit so you can plan engaging lessons

Engagement tip 3: Switch up the environment.

Engagement tip 4: Add joy to your classroom.

Recap:

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with the Inspired Together Teachers Community:

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The Power of Creativity Ep.21

Show Notes:

Episode Summary:

What is the world’s most desperately needed skill and one that no one is talking about? Creativity! Creativity is wildly misunderstood but needed now more than ever. In this episode, we’re talking about why we need creativity and how you can get more of it.

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Replace the words “have to” with “get to”.

Here are some examples:

Increase motivation by changing word choice in your classroom.

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Here are some ways to bring new and fresh energy to your classroom:

Shake up your daily routine.

Add variety in your lessons.

Use technology in new ways.

Build in relevance.

Plan outdoor activities.

How can you combat boredom in the classroom?

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The Lesson Plan Formula of Your Dreams

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