Technology and student engagement

“Student engagement is the product of motivation and active learning. It is a product rather than a sum because it will not occur if either element is missing.”

Elizabeth F. Barkley (Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty

What are the best tools you’ve found to improve student engagement with the content/lesson and promote interaction and collaboration in your classroom?

After reading a post by Gary Hopkins on Mouse Mischief, I’d be willing to give this a try in our classrooms. We’re mounting more Smartboards in our classrooms next year, and this week I went into a fifth grade classroom to show the teacher what Smart Notebook can do. While I was able to bring students up to the board to manipulate parts of the rock cycle and label the layers of the Earth, I really didn’t feel as though what I was presenting was any more dynamic than having students interact with graphic manipulatives in groups at their seats. I think I will need to do a better job helping my teachers learn the best ways to encourage student interaction and engagement with the boards.

I am open and excited to hearing about other tools/tips/tricks you have for classroom teachers to make the most out of their interactive boards and any other tools you’ve used/seen used with great success.

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Source: Pics4Learning

2 Replies to “Technology and student engagement”

  1. I’ve never used an interactive whiteboard (not common here in Japan) but I have found student blogging engages certain students in certain circumstances. Some take to it very well for sharing and collaboration, and if they are given freedom to create and share their own content it can be very motivational.

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