Aug 21, 2020

IS YOUR CLASSROOM A PERFORMANCE OR AN EXPERIENCE?

By now, many of you have already kicked off the school year in your classrooms.

And if you’re like me, one of the challenges you face every day is keeping your students engaged. I can vividly remember my first year of teaching – when I went home exhausted every. night. It took some time and some direction from more experienced teachers for me to realize I didn’t have to carry all the weight in the classroom.

And if you get nothing else from our chat today, I want you to hear me on this: if you try to tap-dance and perform, you’ll wear yourself out. Quickly.

WHAT KIND OF CLASSROOM DO YOU WANT TO CREATE?

Ask yourself what kind of classroom you want – an entertainment solo with an audience? Or an interactive, engaging experience? Maybe a better way to ask that question is this: when you are the student in a learning environment, which way do you learn the most? When you’re an observer? Or an active participant?

We all know the answer to that. Hint: It’s the active participant thing! Hands down.

THE 4 KEYS TO CREATING A CAPTIVATING CLASSROOM

If you want your students to be engaged participants, there are 4 important keys to creating that kind of captivating classroom

Create Connection

Use all your tools – your voice (volume, speed, tone, hi/low).

Be authentic – share who you are (appropriately!)

Be Consistent

Show up relentlessly.

Follow through, follow through, follow through!

Every interaction is an opportunity to build trust or break it.

Build Collaboration

Shift responsibility to students – presentations, group work, Socratic discussions.

Ideas to involve them every day: Be open to opportunities to learn from students.

Embrace the messiness.

Be willing to suck at it first, and to practice, practice, practice.           

Communicate Clearly

Know your audience – what’s the developmentally appropriate attention span of your aged students?

Use short, simple directions.

Use multiple modalities - email, website/platform, displayed in the classroom, paper notes, videos, audio messages, smoke signals.

Enforce it – you teach them how to respond to you.

SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS

If you want a captivating classroom you need a mix of all these ingredients: connection, consistency, collaboration, and clarity. When you have these, you’re setting yourself – and your students – up for an interactive, engaging learning experience.

One where you have enough time to go home and binge-watch your favorite show at the end of the day. While grading papers, of course.

If If you’re feeling uncertain and overwhelmed or a little behind in setting up your classroom, be sure to check out the Start Strong in the Middle Checklist!