TLDR: Students engagement strategies in math discussions start with reflecting on what engagement means to you. Then, get a clear criteria of engagement ready to share with your students. Finally, consider how you’ll build your students capacity to be engaged. Students engagement strategies shouldn’t be about compliance, but instead about building students’ to self monitor their engagement.
Estimated Read time: 7 minutes
How can I keep my students engaged in math discussions?
A common teacher question is students engagement strategies. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been teaching, you’re always working to engage your students. We know that engaged students means they are able to learn. Students engagement is something we can always work on.
Reflection is the Key to Students Engagement Strategies
Of course we have to start with reflection. We know that reflection is a big way to move our practice forward. Through reflection we can gain insights, notice what went well and consider how to approach the problem of practice differently next time.
Recently at a conference I heard a speaker say… “Reflection in and of itself isn’t enough.” That we need to pair our reflection practices with a coach or trusted friend. He said, the coach is there to not help us reflect, as teachers we’re pretty good at reflecting, but to take what we reflect on and help us take action.
Reflection + Accountability = Action
Action + Change = Progress
The idea is that we don’t just reflect for the sake of reflecting, but that we use those reflections to make progress and that is best done with a coach or accountability buddy.
So, I want to tell you that is me for you, friend. That’s why I’m here. I want to give you the space to reflect and then give you more to think about, my perspective and experience. However, I’m always here in the DMs on instagram or email hellomonamath@gmail to chat. Reach out anytime. Email me your reflections or next steps and I’ll follow up and ask you how it is going.
Let’s Reflect on Engagement
What does being engaged look like?
Have you considered what engagement means to you?
In my class I consider engagement as this– listening, thinking, and participating. However, of course that looks and sounds lots of ways. We spend a lot of time talking about what listening looks like, sounds like, and feels like. Then, we talk a lot about what it will look, sound, and feel like to be thinking about what other people are sharing and saying.
We often have a conversation about what types of things get in the way of us listening and thinking– students offer responses like “It’s hard to listen when I’m distracted.” I ask, “What types of things distract you?” Students, “looking out the window, playing with my shoes, my jewelry, talking to my friends, looking at that girl’s hair.” This is such a great way to get students to name what we can avoid and establish the rules. I’ll say something like, “So do you all think we should create some guidelines for our math discussions so we can all listen and think? What do you think they should be?”
So a quick list of what it means to be engaged to share with your students:
You can create an anchor chart of this to refer back to with your students.
- Eye contact
- Calm body
- Silent signals
- Mind on
Teacher Moves that Encourage Student Engagement
What is your role for keeping students engaged?
The goal is to get students to self regulate vs. be managed.
As the facilitator of the math discussion it is not your job to be monitoring for only engagement. In the beginning, you’ll need to spend more time establishing the routine and holding students to the high bar of meeting the expectations of being engaged.
However, it is important to focus on the job as a facilitator of the discussion. Your job is to facilitate students talking, tinkering, figuring out. Your role is not to do the explaining, doing, and showing. That isn’t the learning that sticks. That type of discussion leaves an open door for students to check out. In fact, when you are supporting students in talking, figuring out, and collaborating instead of showing and explaining you help students stay engaged.
I urge you to really consider your own role for helping students stay engaged. Here’s the thing, students will get off task and won’t be thinking about others’ perspectives. That is going to happen. However, it is our job to help them build those muscles, so I use some key strategies that help me.
We have to build our students’ capacity to stay engaged. It’s a skill, like anything else that we have to practice. We know that they will continue to get better at staying focused and participating as we teach them HOW and give them time to practice.
Ways to Build Students’ Capacity to Be Engaged:
- Observe them & consider when breaks are needed
- Take body breaks- breathe, move
- Give strategic partners
- Use Turn and Talks
- Check for Understanding
A Quick Reminder About Your Classroom Community
Your community lays the foundation for self regulation and engagement. If you haven’t spent time developing students’ relationships, norms, and routines then stop what you’re doing and make a plan. Laying a solid foundation of community in your classroom will make true math discussions and student-led practices possible. If you want more information on how to build a classroom community check out these posts:
4 Moves to Help Tweens Overcome Math Anxiety an article I wrote for Middle Web
Honest Math Chat Podcast Episode #5- Math Classroom Community
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