Encouraging Active Participation
3 credits / 45 hours
Instructor Laura Cafarella
Course Description
There are days when you look out at your students’ faces and are unable to gauge how much they understand from your well-prepared lesson. There are also classes in which the same few students raise their hands and provide answers day after day. While it is nice to know that these students are learning, we also want to be sure we are reaching each student in our classroom. This course offers ideas on how to infuse your daily instruction with opportunities for all students to actively participate. Some strategies are so versatile they can be used at a moment’s notice, others involve movement, and all encourage student response. Not only will this active engagement improve student learning, it will also offer you many opportunities to assess what students know, and adjust your lesson plans accordingly.
Course Description
There are days when you look out at your students’ faces and are unable to gauge how much they understand from your well-prepared lesson. There are also classes in which the same few students raise their hands and provide answers day after day. While it is nice to know that these students are learning, we also want to be sure we are reaching each student in our classroom. This course offers ideas on how to infuse your daily instruction with opportunities for all students to actively participate. Some strategies are so versatile they can be used at a moment’s notice, others involve movement, and all encourage student response. Not only will this active engagement improve student learning, it will also offer you many opportunities to assess what students know, and adjust your lesson plans accordingly.
Course Objectives
Students that enroll in this class will...
Know
- a variety of ways to increase the engagement of the students in their class, and be able to apply the steps involved in teaching these practices
- How to prepare your classroom for cooperative learning by arranging the learning environment and teaching students necessary procedures- Ways to integrate technology, including clickers, to actively involve students
Understand
- that the more time their students spend actively involved in their learning, the greater their achievement will be
- the materials and resources necessary to begin using these techniques, and what they need to do to make their classroom conducive to active engagement
- how to incorporate these teaching practices into their daily lessons
- That writing good essential questions will guide student learning and promote better student conversations
and Be Able To
- use the strategies learned in this course as formative assessments, and use the data to plan future instruction
- use cooperative learning and higher level questioning to increase their students’ participation
- Choose cooperative learning experiences that are appropriate for the content being taught and keep their class actively engaged and learning throughout their instruction
