How to Tackle Student Engagement?

To enhance quiz work in Mathematics, History, and Language Instruction courses, transform the classroom into a game show by dividing students into teams and implementing a guided competition program, ensuring an even distribution of strong and struggling students

Fremont, CA:  Complacency in the classroom, especially among first-year college students, is a significant issue. As students become accustomed to college life, they reserve energy, skip assignments, and avoid participation, leading to a class-wide lethargy.

Redefine Their Space

Classroom seating often leads to a fixed layout and approach to course content. To enhance learning, instructors should create new assignments and seat arrangements, disrupting students' familiar methods like spatial, acoustical, and visual. This encourages a more engaging and practical learning experience.

Foster a Spirit of Play

To enhance quiz work in Mathematics, History, and Language Instruction courses, transform the classroom into a game show by dividing students into teams and implementing a guided competition program, ensuring an even distribution of strong and struggling students.

Shock Them

Instructors can enhance student engagement by discussing controversial subjects in disciplines like Composition/Writing, Philosophy, Sociology, and Political Science, encouraging critical thinking and combating complacency. This approach encourages students to question hidden virtues and question their meaning under different conditions.

Group work

The human brain's limited focus can hinder long lectures, but student-centric activities can encourage learning without teaching and make students responsible for course content. Assignments that require students to analyze readings, topics, or arguments can create an insurmountable position of responsibility, making complacency impossible.

Current events

Instructors who integrate current events into their curriculum have a significant advantage. By linking curriculum principles with contemporary news, students become more aware of the urgency of these principles. Social media has made students passionate about reporting news, allowing them to contribute to the issues shaping their world.

Let Your Students Enjoy You

Student engagement is primarily influenced by personality traits like honesty, humor, and genuine interest in ideas, and students feel more responsible and share opinions when their professors treat them meaningfully.

Conduct a survey

Conducting a semester-end student survey can be beneficial for your department, allowing you to understand effective engagement methods, spark student interest, and identify areas for improvement.