Assignments for Improving Student Engagement

If you're an educator, you know what it's like to stand at the front of the classroom and see nothing but blank stares looking back at you. Maybe it's Friday syndrome, or maybe they're confused – either way, how can you gauge how students feel about a lesson if they won't engage?

And it's not just about engaging with you – it's about engaging with the material, too. How do you conduct a lesson if everyone shows up to class having not read the material? How do you encourage them to ask the right questions so they can better understand the lesson?

It's important to set up your assignments in such a way that students have no choice but to engage with the educator and the material. It's easier for you when it comes to leading a discussion, and it's easier for them when the big test comes around.

Short, Open-Ended Responses

We hesitate to use the term "essay question," because that's intimidating for both the people who have to write them and the people who have to grade them. But if you replace long essays with intermittent, short essays, it's easy to see that the students are absorbing the material and it's easy to grade. If you give them two big essays per semester, you're only getting two good checkpoints. However, asking students to respond to essay questions – ones that focus on an important aspect of the material, but one that requires thought -- in one paragraph, you're getting several "checkpoints" throughout the semester to ensure that they're engaged and you're saving yourself some grading hours.

Forum Discussions

Whether you're using performance learning systems for mobile devices or using social media, you'd be amazed at how much online forum discussions get students talking. Your shy students who are afraid to raise their hands during class are suddenly the most talkative when they're behind a keyboard, and those who tend to zone out during class can visit the discussion at their leisure. If you assign contributions to the forum as homework, you can get an idea of what to discuss, what they already seem to understand, and what they haven't thought of. It's great for feedback on material, improving engagement, and sparking discussion.

Peer-Editing

Before turning a large assignment into the instructor, set aside a class period strictly for peer-editing. Not only does it help students to polish their work before it makes it into your hands, but it gives them another point of view to consider – the point of view of one of their peers. Leave a week between the peer-editing session and the due date so that students can mull over the critiques they got from their peers as well as what they've read in the content created by their peers. They might even be more willing to engage with the ideas of a classmate than they would with those of an instructor.

Five Ways Teachers Can Make BYOD Learning Fun

A question that plagues teachers as they debate whether or not to incorporate a BYOD – or, "Bring Your Own Device" – structure into the classroom is this: what's my new role? Some teachers feel a bit intimidated of the idea of incorporating an electronic learning system, feeling it might overshadow their capabilities. In truth, e-learning systems are intended to accentuate a teacher's methodologies and highlight his or her strengths by creating a fluid transfer of information and a less intimidating way for students to interact.

Most teachers know that they can make students' grades visible to them in real-time with e-learning systems, and that they can keep their lesson plans more organized and accessible. But there are also really unique tools that make learning more fun for students and, therefore, encourage them to want to interact. Try incorporating one of these practices into your next lesson plan and notice the difference.

Poll Questions

More often than not, when a student isn't participating in a discussion or volunteering an answer to a question, it's not because they don't have the answer or anything worthy to contribute. It's more often because they're intimidated. Unique learning systems that can be used on mobile devices allow a poll capability so that students can answer through text without having to put themselves out there in front of the whole class. The teacher can administer multiple-choice, true/false, or "traffic light" polls, depending on the nature of the question. Each student response can be seen in real-time on the teacher's device, and he or she can then decide whether to project the results to the entire class.

Use Scannable QR-Codes

QR-Codes are barcodes that can be read by smartphone apps. There are many QR-Code generators teachers can use to condense their educational resources. Students simply need to scan the QR-Code at home or in the classroom to access the information. Let's just admit – it's kind of fun to do this. It also cuts back on the amount of paper that can get "lost" or destroyed.

Flashcard Apps

How many of your students do you think will actually take the time to sit down and make flashcards with which to study? That being said, students of a certain age are glued to their mobile devices. Flashcard apps make it fun to make digital flashcards that students won't forget to take with them while they're in the car or on the bus. It's convenient and fun to use.

Text Discussions

There are some systems that allow students to text responses that will appear on the screen. Again, this removes the intimidation factor that many students face when they want to contribute to the discussion. It also helps to keep a discussion on track rather than having too many students talk at once. As the teacher, you can view everything the students have to say and pick and choose important points to touch on. Plus, students love to text.

Cameras

Perhaps you're building a diagram or conducting a lab experiment in class. This isn't something that students can take home with them…or is it? Learning with mobile devices means that students can snap pictures of useful tools so that they can reference it later. This also saves time – no one will spend half the class period drawing out the diagram so that they can bring it home with them.

Maintaining a Sense of Community in an E-Learning Environment

With the rapid popularization of mobile devices comes a lot of criticism. In personal life, on social media, and in schools, many people are concerned that interactions between people are becoming increasingly impersonal. The fact of the matter is that whether or not that holds true is up to the mobile device user. For teachers who want to incorporate e-learning and mobile devices into their classroom environments, they can actually stimulate the sense of community in the classroom rather than disturbing it. It's all about taking an approach that encourages engagement.

Use Tools for Collaborative Brainstorming

If you utilize your tools to ask for ideas as often as you ask for answers, you'll have a positive experience. It encourages the students who are too intimidated to present their ideas to get involved. The trick is to use an interactive e-learning tool that allows students to enter text or resources onto a community board. This way, everyone is provided the opportunity to be seen, the content will remain on-topic, and students are encouraged to think outside the box when brainstorming. Encourage students to start discussions based off of individual posts.

Encourage Feedback

It's not just about getting the students to interact with one another, but getting them to interact with you as well. Whatever e-learning system you use will probably come with a poll or multiple-choice question app. Use this to administer quizzes as well as surveys about the classroom experience. This gives students the opportunity to anonymously express their feelings without being overcome with shyness.

However, feedback doesn't have to just be for you. If you encourage your students to post their work on the e-learning platform, other students can provide feedback on that, as well. You could use this for peer-editing projects or for general sharing of resources.

Create a Push-and-Pull

Yes, e-learning systems are great for quickly and efficiently uploading resources and information, distributing it to the entire class. But you should also be encouraging students to do their own research, find their own resources, and learn at their own pace. When they're struggling with a topic, have them post about it in the discussions and attempt to draw out information from those who know better. When they do poorly on a quiz, ensure that they know where they can get the resources to do better next time. Have the students use their devices to their maximum potential to contact you, contact one another, and reference their educational resources for a sense of community.

BYOD Learning Structures: The Future of Education?

In this day and age, we've all either been in a classroom that utilizes a 'bring your own device' (BYOD) learning experience, or we know someone who has. Despite the fact that there are so many obvious benefits to using smartphones, e-readers, tablets and laptops in the classroom, there are still parents and teachers who have an aversion to the sudden introduction of this new technology. Though their concerns - that the kids might be distracted, that it may encourage the use of unmonitored social networking, that there will be an issue for less wealthy students, et cetera - are legitimate, it's unrealistic to consider resisting such a movement considering how quintessential technology is becoming in modern life.

A recent study shows that educators who have implemented technology into their classrooms have noticed a significantly improved level of engagement from their students. One teacher, for example, realized that her lesson plans needed to undergo a radical change - her students were demonstrating a lack of focus, which left them stumped by the traditional-style lectures and showing poor test scores. To switch things up, the teacher decided to begin recording her lectures and uploading them to iTunes. Thus, they absorbed the material when at home and engaged in hands-on problem solving when in the classroom. That year, the students scored an average of 4.11 on the AP calculus test: a steep 10% increase from the previous year. A third of the class received the highest possible mark, a 5.

Another recent study showed that 78% of grade-school educators and administrators have noticed a positive impact on their students' productivity, and 65% of educators even think that due to the influx of technology in the classroom, students are more productive today than they were three years ago.

So what makes e-learning systems so beneficial? A combination of factors, to be sure. Nowadays, it's rare to see a person of acceptable age without at least one mobile device -- and for many people, they have that device on them at all times. Students of the technological age are now equipped with two types of brains: their physical ones, and their technological ones. To simply ignore such a powerful tool, especially one that's easily accessible, would be foolish on an educator's part. The possibilities are literally endless. Though, as aforementioned, there are legitimate concerns about having technology in the classroom, the pros outweigh the cons - such a wealth of information can make students more able and effective people. One journalist likened ignoring the ability to use technology to ignoring the ability to use writing - we'd be forgoing a tool that allows us to "capture and store knowledge."

It's merely important for educators and administrators to recognize and adapt to the potential risks of using technology, but that was an easily overcome hurdle when it came to introducing desktop computers in the classroom. With the right security measures and the adoption of the right software, BYOD teaching and e-learning systems offer great value to students, parents, and educators.