Motivating & Inspiring Students: Strategies to Awaken the Learner - helping students connect to something greater than themselves by Robert J. Marzano & Darrel Scott

Author:Robert J. Marzano & Darrel Scott [Marzano, Robert J.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Marzano Research
Published: 2016-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

Significance

A sense of significance, the belief that individuals impact the people and environment around them, also directly contributes to esteem. Teachers can make students feel significant by creating opportunities for input, choice, and responsibility within the classroom.

Input

Teachers can make students feel significant by asking them for their input, as this shows that teachers value their opinions and feedback and want them to have a say in their learning. Opportunities for student input abound in the classroom, and teachers can use student responses to inform future content, activities, and interactions. For example, after completing a unit, a teacher might ask students to use a simple voting technique to indicate how much they enjoyed the unit and whether it should be taught next year to other students. The teacher might then query students about activities that they particularly enjoyed or disliked and suggestions for improvement. Even though this action is fairly minimal on the part of the teacher and does not need to take more than five or ten minutes of class time, it can make students feel as though they are impacting the learning of future students and that the teacher cares that their experiences in the classroom are positive. Additional opportunities to ask for student input are listed here.

Classroom parking lots: Classroom parking lots allow teachers to gather student input related to a day’s lessons. A poster or part of the board (the “parking lot”) is divided into sections that prompt students for different types of input, such as questions, suggestions, things they learned, or things they are still confused about. Teachers give students a few sticky notes at the end of class and ask them to provide input based on the sections of the parking lot. Students write their answers, then “park” their responses in the appropriate section of the poster or board as they leave the classroom.

Discussions: Another way to ask students for input is through class discussion. Students share their thoughts or opinions about a specific topic, and other students respond accordingly. Teachers should monitor the amount that various students speak during` discussions to avoid some students monopolizing the conversation. Teachers may also want to recap conclusions drawn from a specific discussion to ensure they correctly interpreted students’ comments.

Exit slips: Exit slips are written responses to prompts that are assigned and turned in at the end of class. Traditionally, exit slips check students’ understanding or ask students to reflect on what they learned during the day. However, teachers can modify exit slip prompts to provide space for students to register concerns or give feedback about aspects of a lesson. For more about exit slips, see page 109.

Interactive notebooks: A powerful way to help students reinforce their learning is through the use of academic notebooks. Interactive notebooks take this idea one step further, as teachers prompt students to write entries about their academic experiences or suggestions for the classroom. Teachers then correspond with students in their notebooks to show that they hear and consider their students’ input.

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