Pub. 4 2014-2015 Issue 1

20 How to Keep Your Students Awake and Interested Teenagers are selfish. Now, I don’t really believe that or I wouldn’t be in my profession, but I’m hoping I got your attention! If I wrote this down on my whiteboard and had my students agree or disagree with the statement, I would definitely have their attention, too! Just like an opening line of an article, a good intro to class can “hook” students into the lesson by capturing their attention. Besides just catching them at the beginning of class, we need to keep them continually inter- ested and engaged. In a time and age where we as teachers have to compete with World of Warcraft and cell phones, we need a few tools in our belt to encourage participation, work, and meaningful engagement in our students. When I first began teaching at Walden School of Liberal Arts, I was thoroughly impressed by the mission state- ment of the school. Part of the mission states, “It is a place where critical thought, creativity and independence are nurtured; where empathy, cultural awareness and toler- ance are valued. We champion student choice and autono- my, authentic research and project work.” I thought that if I could truly exemplify that mission in my classroom, my students would be at school everyday, ready to learn, because they were so excited to contribute. I know this is every teacher’s dream, but how can we make it a reality? There are several things I’ve learned over the years, many of them tying back to the Walden School mission, that I’ve found to be quite helpful to encourage student engagement; and to make them more memorable, they all start with C’s: Capturing Attention, Creativity, Choice, Classroom, Care, and Connections. Capturing Attention As teachers, most of us were probably taught to start class with a “hook” to grab student attention from the moment they sit down. And in today’s society, I think it’s even more important. Now, I’m not saying that everyday has to start off with an action movie explosion, but some way to get them off their phones and into the lesson. This could be done with an interesting photo by Jacob Riis showing child labor in the late 1800’s or a journal prompt asking why we need insects in the world. It could be a question- naire, a game, a stand up/sit down activity to get them out of their seats, or a song that goes with your topic for the day. We should look for opportunities to pique students’ curiosity and invite them to solve mysteries associated with our content, encouraging them to investigate and inquire. Sometimes this means we, as teachers, have to take risks— some things will work, some won’t, and that’s okay! Creativity We want our students to be creative humans and that means we need to teach them through our example. We need to think beyond worksheets and reading from the book everyday. Our classes should involve multiple learn- ing styles, group work, projects, games, and multiple means of assessment. We should allow the students to ex- press their individuality through their work and find ways to invite their creativity into the classroom. I’ve found this can be quite empowering for the student. If a student is given the chance to be creative in a project, for example, to create their own civilization or to make a poster adver- BY BEVERLY PECORARO, WALDEN SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS 2014 CHARTER SCHOOL TEACHER OF THE YEAR