Student Engagement is FUNdamental

As many teachers are discovering, most students prefer doing rather than observing.

But with new state requirements to meet, teachers are struggling to connect to their students and create a fun, engaging learning environment. Fulfilling the rigorous criteria of the Common Core State Standards while developing good rapport with your students can be difficult; attempts to do so have often left teachers frustrated and students disengaged.

Award winning, veteran teacher Jane Feber has just released a new book, Student Engagement is FUNdamental which appeals to students by building classroom rapport through the use of hands-on crafts. The student-teacher relationship is strengthened, and so is the learning environment.

“Building a classroom community of students who are engaged and ready to learn takes time and effort.," writes Feber. "So why not use hands-on activities to build academic skills—and student trust and rapport—at the same time?”

The physical act of engaging in an activity is much more personal than conceptualizing theories or remembering facts. When students and teachers engage in hands-on crafts, they develop a personal connection.

Research points to the value of a hands-on approach. According to an article in Educational Leadership, adolescents work harder for teachers who treat them as individuals and express interest in their personal lives: "When a teacher gets to know their students, the students are able to see that the teacher is truly concerned.”

In Feber’s experience, a strong student/teacher rapport comes with many benefits, including increased motivation, improved attendance, less stress in the classroom, more student engagement with learning, and greater overall student success with academics.

But engaging the student is two-fold. Not only do you have to work with students in a personal way—the work also has to be fun! And that is exactly what Jane Feber brings to the table: fun.

Although all of the activities in FUNdamental meet this requirement, one of my favorites is “To Tell the Truth.” In this activity, students pick a particular topic of study and write down five statements about that topic. Some of these statements are true, and some of them are false.

After the statements have been prepared, students are paired up and asked to decide if they think their partner’s statements are true or false. The game quickly becomes competitive and engaging as students try to create challenging statements about their topic of study. While having fun, students are forcing each other to recall facts and concepts about a unit of study.

By incorporating clever activities such as “To Tell the Truth," teachers are engaging their students on a very basic level, all while reinforcing the knowledge that those students might otherwise resist.