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To begin with, I would like to recount why I chose to teach as my career. In 2005, I completed my schooling from the Senior Secondary Certification State Board of Maharashtra, India with an average strength of 80 students per class and everyone studying by rote-learning. It made me wonder how the teachers managed to teach all the children, the same topics and concepts with theOne size fits all’ approach.

Everyone learning the same way despite different capabilities and interests was definitely not my preferred choice.

To deepen my understanding of education and teaching, I decided to get into the system and learn new approaches for the ‘NEXT GENERATION’. Further, I pursued my Early Care Child Education and Bachelors in Education studies from Mumbai University in the year 2011-12. With a good knowledge of the curriculum, it was now time for me to get involved in the integrated and differentiated programmes which most of the schools offered back then. I started my career with IB schools and quickly realized that the education scene was undergoing a big change. The student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, the assessment criteria, and the teaching methodology - almost everything has been revolutionized. The curriculum knowledge along with teaching practices made me more aware of the learner-centric approach.

Teaching is now so much more hands-on, unlike in the past where rote-learning was the primary learning method. It now gives me immense pleasure to teach a new batch every year, as I experiment with and adopt new methods of teaching the same topics to my class. I believe teaching should be deeply motivating, concept-driven, and must create an inquiry-based learning environment for the students. The best way to teach is to make sure our students are engaged in the learning journey, where they get to take the knowledge and understanding ahead through inquiry, collaboration, integration, differentiation, appreciation, and motivation.

When students are empowered to lead their own learning, they gain knowledge of how they learn best and how to transfer their learning strengths to other areas. This builds their sense of self-efficacy and encourages them to push further in their learning. We believe that relevant, personalized, collaborative, and connected learning experiences enhance student engagement, which in turn drives student achievement. Student-led engagements are the key to active enquiry-based learning.

In this article let's talk about the Strategies For Engrossed And Engaging Students In learning:

1. Encourage Different Learning Styles:

Encourage Different Learning Styles
Every child has a different style of learning and there is no right or wrong style. We believe in taking Howard Gardener’s multiple intelligence approaches where we are able to know the students through Language, logical, visual, spatial, musical and naturist way. Therefore the focus here is ‘Every student can learn but not on the same day or the same way’.

2. Every Day Is A New Learning:

Every day should be a new experience. The ability to learn is a skill and the willingness to learn is a choice. Therefore the engagements planned within the classroom should motivate the learners to ask more questions and to be more focused.

3. Structure:

Avoid the 90’s techniques for teaching, as it doesn’t help for every concept or all the subjects. Engagements have to be more involving and need to be collaborative where all the students are able to showcase their ability through various mediums of learning. Getting them involved keeps them engaged.

4. Creativity:

Creativity - Encourage Different Learning Styles
Involve creativity into a lesson. This gives students the opportunity to learn hands-on, which is always a great way to keep them interested in learning. Plus, hands-on-activities are a great way to keep many learners with difficulties interested in what they’re learning.

5. Gamification:

Make learning into a game. For example, A fun math idea is to use the card game War to teach multiplication. Whoever comes up with the product of the two cards first wins that hand. A simple quiz could also be played on Exploration to review the history. Snowball strategy where the learners throw crumpled paper snowballs at each other and read out a concept related to Science or Language.

6. Support:

Students need constant encouragement and support throughout their learning journey if they are to succeed. They are more likely to get involved in classroom engagements if they know you are there to support them.

7. Differentiate And Don’t Give Up:

Students have different interests, personalities, and attention span so ensuring everyone in the classroom is engaged is not an easy task. It’s therefore important to try a variety of techniques to see what works for your class. Getting to know your students as individuals, their traits and preferences is key to improving student engagement in the classroom. Regular baseline assessments can help the teachers to know their children in a great way and also change their way of teaching styles.

8. On-Going Reflections And Assessments:

Engage students constantly to think about their learning and reflect on their achievements and process. Reflection helps students review what was truly learned. Giving students time to think about their learning which can help them build strong meta cognitive skills.

Improving student engagement in the classroom takes time and effort, however trying these various techniques is a great start. Remember- “students need to be ENGAGED & ENGROSSED!”

Written By, Rasika Mhatre - Grade leader- Nursery and Junior Kg,
JBCN International School, Parel