Get Students in the Game
Engage inattentive students and increase their participation in the classroom with these fun strategies for offering answers.
Teachers always have students in their classrooms who are inattentive. The following four methods increase student participation and response:
1. Use choral responses. Have students read short passages or lines from a textbook in unison. Have the whole class review math facts by asking them to respond to flash cards you hold up, or project on a PowerPoint, at varying rates.
2. Try pre-made response cards. When the teacher poses questions, students select their answer by holding up a pre-printed response card. Teachers can create cards with a few possible answers on it. Students place a clothespin on their answer and hold up the card when cued to do so.
3. Use a dry-erase board. Ask the class a question, pause for thinking time, and have students write their answers on individual dry-erase boards. After the teacher says, “Boards Up,” students hold up their boards for the teacher to assess who needs help.
4. “Finger” the correct answer. Teachers pose multiple-choice questions, with the choices written on the board, and signal students to hold up the number of fingers that correspond with the correct answer.
