Engaging Students with Effective Instructional Strategies
Motivation and engagement are affected by how teachers teach. Play-based learning is an excellent strategy to hold on to (though many schools are moving away from it) especially when we are doing social emotional learning (SEL) and social skills training for our students with exceptionalities. Effective teachers are explicit with their instruction they are clear on what they are teaching by explanation, modeling, and guiding students step by step through the concept with frequent checks for understanding; this builds skills systematically. It’s not just telling what to do but showing students through modeling HOW to do it. They use visual support and nonlinguistic representation; this is especially important for our students who are non-speaking. The gradual release mold is a great way of helping students but also giving them the goal of independence as you: model: “I do”, help: “we do,” and eventually give independence on the task when they are ready, “you do.”
We work hard to teach, but a concept learned shouldn’t be set on a shelf to gather dust and be forgotten rather, the skill should be reviewed and reinforced so it becomes automatic. We will also need to differentiate and this will be especially so with task management, you may be able to tell one student, “it’s time to go,” and that cue is enough for them to put on their coat, pack their backpack and put it on, and line up or sit at their desk until dismissal, other students may need more, “it’s time to go, first we need to,” and when the task is done, “then we...” visual examples are a great way to reinforce these skills as they are learned.
It’s all well and good to say, “do X, do Y, do Z,” and you’ll be an effective teacher. But what does it actually look like implemented in the classroom?
Play-based learning is a great way to let students work on their social skills in a more relaxed child led environment, from activities and games to role-play and imaginative play giving students the opportunity to play is a great way to learn different social skills. Games and activities encourage the use of turn-taking and a back-and-forth interaction where role-play and imaginative play fosters peer interaction while also helping social skill development like communication and emotional regulation.
In the classroom: invite students to play a game targeted at their age or skill level as simple as rolling a ball back and forth to you or another student and going up into board games.
Explicit instruction with our gradual release mode; model, guided, independent work. Where we break down and model the information being taught, showing our students how to do what we do, then assisting our students in the work being taught, and finally giving them the chance to work on something they understand independently. This instruction should include the gradual release mode to the extent your student is able, model and think-a-loud about the subject you are teaching, complex skills are broken down into manageable pieces, showing both examples and non-examples, with frequent check-ins, using clear and understandable language.
Visual supports are the number one thing I will advocate for more of in a classroom. I want to see more visual support in every classroom, they are very common in contained classes and relatively common in collaborative classrooms and they can be seen in general education classrooms as well, however I think schools can be offering more visual support. They are useful to students who require them, but they can also be utilized by students who don’t need them. Visual cues don’t take away from students who don’t need them, they just add to the overall learning experience.
In the classroom: Have a visual representation of your daily schedule, consider a visual timer for your activities so students can see how much time they have left in an activity, visuals for different areas and items in your classroom (labels) with this, if you have an ELL student consider a picture the English word and the word in the student’s native language. Books can be adapted with a lot of time and a fair amount of effort, which is something I am particularly dedicated to because I think books need to be more accessible to every learner.
A teacher who is prepared for school and ready to teach when they walk in, a teacher who is up to date on best practices and works to make lessons interesting to their students is going to be a more effective teacher than someone who is just barely arriving in time to accept students into their classroom, who mostly has a plan but is going to wing some of the day, who just needs to teach the subject matter without trying to gain engagement through making lessons valuable to students.
Routines matter, a teacher who has clear expectations and a routine is going to have a more engaged and motivated classroom because students know what to expect and when to expect it, they also know the expectations for themselves.
Communication is respectful in conversations with colleagues, parents, and students. Open and frequent communication with parents can help engage students by engaging their parents in their students’ learning. Colleagues are a valuable source of information and friendship, no one understands what a Friday before a holiday break is like more than the teacher across the hall from you who has three students that are so excited its nearly impossible to stay seated. Students are who we work with and communicate with most and how we talk with them and to them during a lesson will show them how you feel about them.
Building relationships is a foundation for effective teaching, understanding your students and their different needs, showing them through how you show up and are reliable that you are a safe person matters because we need basic needs met before real teaching can happen.
Effective teachers are going to engage their student in instruction by providing lessons that show the student the value or relevance to the student and when that isn’t possible, they might use visuals that interest the student. As much as we may want to make every lesson fun, it simply isn’t possible to keep every student fully engaged in every lesson but we can use their interests to make lessons interesting, we can relate information to their own lives and cultures to help make information more accessible and relevant building off what they do know.
