Tips and Strategies for Keeping Students Engaged
- 4 Student Engagement Tips (From a Student): Find out from one student how relationships, humor, choice, and displaying his work engaged him, and watch his three-minute video highlighting student work and personalized learning. (Edutopia, 2016)
- Igniting Student Engagement: A Roadmap for Learning: Explore key strategies like being authentic, introducing units with meaningful launch events, and letting students know what outcomes to expect. (Edutopia, 2015)
- The 8 Minutes That Matter Most: Find tips for engaging students during the first and last eight minutes of class. (Edutopia, 2015)
- Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities: Investigate student engagement practices such as making activities meaningful, fostering efficacy, providing autonomy support, embracing collaborative learning, establishing positive teacher-student relationships, and promoting mastery orientations. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)
- New Study: Engage Kids With 7x the Effect: Understand why ensuring that students care about the material and that they know how much you care about them is so critical for effective engagement. (Edutopia, 2014)
- Bell Ringer Exercises: Discover ideas for short, focused exercises to help students make the most of classroom time. (Edutopia, 2013)
Engagement Through Projects
- 4 Practices for Increasing Student Engagement: Pursue interest- and project-oriented strategies for getting and keeping student attention. (Edutopia, 2016)
- Powerful Classroom Lessons: It All Begins With the Hook: Introduce projects by capturing students' interest and pulling them in. (Edutopia, 2015)
- Embracing Student Creativity With a Wonder Shelf: Provide math students with manipulatives and art supplies to bring excitement, engagement, and elements of a makerspace into the classroom. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)
- 6 Rules to Break for Better, Deeper Learning Outcomes: Incorporate deeper learning as you empower students to seek knowledge from many sources, use tools relevant to their lives, and embrace the lessons of failure. (Edutopia, 2014)
- 6 Engaging End-of-Year Projects: Discover six projects to engage students during the last few weeks of school. (Edutopia, 2012)
Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Project-Based Learning page.
Engagement Through Technology
- Using New Technology to Rediscover Traditional Ways of Learning: Rediscover traditional ways of learning via digital technology, using touch, movement, sound, and visuality. (Edutopia, 2015)
- Classroom Management in the Tech-Equipped Classroom: Find tips for successfully integrating technology to enhance student engagement. (Edutopia, 2014)
- Cardboard Box Tools: Discover three digital learning tools that offer young minds the free play of imagination. (Edutopia, 2014)
- The Backchannel: Giving Every Student a Voice in the Blended Mobile Classroom: Use the backchannel as a strategy for keeping students engaged. (Edutopia, 2014)
- 4 Technologies to Help Students Find Their Voice in Your Classroom: Help students find their voice in the classroom through technology. (Edutopia, 2014)
Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Technology Integration page.
Engagement Through Social and Emotional Learning
- Building Community With Attendance Questions: Consider asking an attendance question to stretch students' minds toward actively learning as part of a classroom community. (Edutopia, 2016)
- Incentivizing Class: The Engagement-Based Management Model: Invite your students to participate in a behavioral model that helps them level up with their engagement and attitude—much like a video game. (Edutopia, 2015)
- Creating a Welcoming and Intellectually Challenging Classroom: Check out these important strategies for creating an inclusive learning space that also challenges students with rigorous thinking and projects. (Edutopia, Updated 2015)
- 8 Play-Based Strategies to Engage Youth in Learning: Encourage youth to play with purpose. (Edutopia, 2014)
- Teaching Empathy: Turning a Lesson Plan Into a Life Skill: Use the jigsaw method of cooperative learning to build empathy and increase engagement as students rely on each other to share pieces of a bigger picture. (Edutopia, 2014)
- Engaged Teaching: "Do Now" Activities for Your Lessons: Explore simple tips for implementing SEL in elementary, middle, and high school classes. (Edutopia, 2013)
Find more Edutopia content on this topic on our Social and Emotional Learning page.
Examples From Schools That Work
Edutopia's flagship series highlights pedagogies, strategies, and practices from K-12 schools and districts that are improving the way students learn. Below, dive into real-world examples of how educators are engaging students.
Adapt these six tips from Nashville Big Picture High School in Nashville, Tennessee to bring personalized learning projects into your classroom and build student engagement.
Find out how educators at Hood River Middle School in Hood River, Oregon employ local experts to make student learning come to life.
See how students at University Park Campus School in Worcester, Massachusetts grow into their power and potential through student-led meetings.
Learn about maker education in Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia and how it fosters student autonomy, ignites student interest, and empowers students to embrace their own learning.
Watch teachers at Symonds Elementary in Keene, New Hampshire, and understand how they use morning meetings to develop valuable social-emotional skills, create a culture of respect and trust, and prepare students to learn.