February+Edutopia+Reflection

Frondeville, T. (2009). Ho//w to Keep Kids Engaged in Class.// Retrieved February 8, 2010, from Edutopia web site: []

This article describes strategies to keep students engaged during lessons. Frondeville refers to lack of engagement, dead time. I prefer to call this off task. Every lesson, no matter how well planned, has a chance for students to encounter dead time. According to the book __Inspiring Active Learning__, there are four levels of students: level four is the lowest level often known as work avoiders, level three are halfhearted workers, level two are responsible students, and level one are fully active learners.

Frondeville also writes about ten rules of engagement for learners. One rule consists of a classic warm up. I would also call this the bell ringer, or if you are familiar with Madeline Hunter, the anticipatory set. His strategy differs slightly because he encourages this to be collaborative activities among students. This is a commonality found in the reading I have done these past few months. This generation of students prefers to work collaboratively. In another rule he encourages the teacher to teach students how to collaborate before expecting success in group work. Another rule for engagement is movement which he calls the seventh inning stretch. (That phrase would certainly grab the attention of my sports minded student.) Quickwrite is another rule discussed. Frondeville suggests having students write a possible test or a quiz question. The other rules for engagement include using a fairness cup (drawing students’ names randomly from a cup) and using signaling to allow everyone a chance to answer the teacher’s question. He suggests teaching these procedures to the class at the beginning of the year so students are so trained that they know exactly what the routine is when they have finished an assigned task. He sums up his rules with advice on mixing up your teaching styles and creating a teamwork environment.

When I chose this article, I was expecting some strategies to include the use of technology. But it appears that this article incorporates more active learning strategies. The strategies he discussed are something that can be incorporated into every classroom. Using any of these should decrease dead time.