Student engagement happens as a result of a teacher’s careful planning and execution of specific strategies. This self-study text provides in-depth understanding of how to generate high levels of student attention and engagement. Using the suggestions in this book, every teacher can create a classroom environment where engagement is the norm, not the exception.

Make your lessons interesting, interactive, and engaging Successful lessons are explicit, yet also inspire active learning and opportunities to respond. As the one shaping lessons, can you do better? Probably, and you’re not alone. Research shows teachers consistently offer students far fewer than the recommended opportunities to respond, leaving all students—including those with special needs and behavior challenges—less than engaged and falling short of their best chance for success. With this book, you’ll discover 14 strategies you can translate directly to your classroom, complete with descriptions, advantages and disadvantages of each, and how and when best to use them. Divided into three parts, you will be guided through Verbal engagement strategies, such as whip around, choral responding, quick polls, and individual questioning Non-verbal engagement strategies, such as stop and jot, guided notes, response cards, and hand signals Partner and teaming strategies, such as turn & talk, cued retell, four corners, and classroom mingle Dive into these strategies and transform your classroom into a rich and interactive environment—no matter the subject, context, or age of your students.

"This book's focus is on taking action in the world and making students better-prepared citizens"--

A blueprint for improving the American public school system cites the inherent flaws of progress-based systems, recommending practices that tap the talents, motivational instincts, and potential of students and teachers.

No other book on teaching has excited me as much as this one. It should be the core text for prospective teachers in any field' -- Jonathan Potter, English and Drama Teacher Camden Hills Regional High School, Rockport, ME 'VanDeWeghe presents powerful instructional practices to help students use both their hearts and their minds in learning' -- Louann Reid, Professor Colorado State University To generate truly compelling learning experiences and increase retention of new information, educators need the knowledge and tools to engage students from both a neurological and humanistic perspective. Richard VanDeWeghe provides an inside look at what happens in students' minds and hearts when they are engaged and "in the groove." Based on Mihaly Csikszentmihaly's idea of "flow"--a state of intrinsic control, curiosity, interest, and inquiry that is the ultimate experiential goal for learning--this book provides holistic strategies for encouraging students to become motivated, engaged learners. Teachers will find: - Information on brain function and memory pathways - Spiritual and emotional principles of the heart that influence learning - Strategies for guiding open-ended discussions, quality questioning, and teacher modeling - Immediate, practical applications for language arts, science, maths, and social studies - Vignettes illustrating effective teacher dialogue and classroom involvement Engaged Learning is a clear, concise, and elegant resource that helps teachers understand what it means to be a highly motivated learner.

"This unique resource is a deep dive into Activators, a core teaching practice that incorporates individual think time with purposeful social interaction to increase emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement in learning. Featuring concrete, hands-on activities that can be completed efficiently at the start of a unit, lesson, or topic, Activators help to: Increase engagement in learning, Support a well-paced lesson, Generate connections to prior knowledge, Provide students with opportunities to practice skills and deepen understandings, [and] Support formative assessment. Although Activators have different formats, they all share two key components: individual think time and purposeful social interaction, which support students to develop quality responses to content and ideas while engaging with peers. Authors Nicole Frazier and Donna Mehle offer detailed facilitation tips for more than 20 Activators, providing a clear understanding of what they are and how they work in specific settings. Frazier and Mehle created Activators with careful attention to the latest research on the most effective ways to foster engagement among adolescent learners. They were motivated to write Activators to share this powerful core practice more widely. They note, 'In our 25+ combined years of teaching experience as well as our work as educational consultants who support middle and secondary teachers around the country, we've witnessed up close the ways in which these Activator formats ignite students' attention and interest, maximize participation and drive well-paced lessons that deepen learning in meaningful ways.' Content area examples for English language arts, math, science, social studies, and world languages accompany each Activator. The ELA and math content examples are aligned to Common Core Content Standards for grades 6-12." -- Publisher's description.