Beyond Turn and Talk: 5 Creative Ways to Boost Student Engagement When Creating Curriculum
Looking for creative ways to engage students when creating curriculum? Explore 5 of our favorite strategies to keep learners engaged in the classroom.
As educators, we all know that student engagement is important to the lessons that we plan and deliver to our students. In my many years of teaching, tutoring, and working with students of all kinds, I have found that no matter the group, a high level of student engagement enhances the learning experience for everyone involved.
In this blog, we’ll explore strategies to engage students and look at this through the lens of curriculum development. When creating curriculum, it’s critical to consider and thoughtfully plan the structure, activities, and content in our lesson plans to increase engagement and deeper learning.
Well-designed lessons, units, and activities enhance overall academic achievement and encourage students to find relevance and think critically in new ways. By incorporating effective student engagement strategies as curriculum developers and/or as teachers, we can empower students to become active participants and take ownership of their learning.
How to Keep Students Engaged In the Classroom
There are many ways to keep students interested and engaged in their learning. One of the most common ways is to get students talking about what they’ve just learned or help them apply their new knowledge to a hands-on or real-world learning situation.
But as classroom teachers, it can be difficult to get creative with engagement strategies. Between preparing lessons, actually teaching and grading assignments, finding time to come up with innovative approaches is challenging.
That’s why it’s so important to focus on including best practices for student engagement when designing curriculum.
5 Ideas for Student Engagement Strategies in Curriculum
Discussion-based strategies are an important tool for increasing student engagement. However, repeatedly using the same techniques, such as Turn and Talk, may fall short of engaging students. While beneficial in some contexts, this approach may actually limit meaningful participation and may not consider the diverse needs of all learners.
So let's explore five creative ways to engage students that we can incorporate into our lessons that create a more dynamic and inclusive learning environment. These techniques not only increase student engagement but accommodate various learning styles, ensuring greater levels of accessibility for different types of learners.
Quick Write
A Quick Write is a brief, focused activity lasting about 2-3 minutes where students respond to a prompt or a question. They write their ideas continuously for the allotted time period without worrying about grammar or punctuation. It’s basically stream-of-consciousness writing about a given topic. Students can then use their writing to participate more effectively in a collaborative activity or classroom discussion.
Benefits:
This student engagement strategy can activate prior knowledge, encourage reflection on the topic, and help writing skill development. It also serves as a quick assessment tool for teachers to gauge students' understanding.
How to implement:
Determine your time limit. 2-5 minutes is often ideal.
Provide a prompt or question that aligns with your lesson objectives. For instance, “What are three things you know about the Civil Rights Movement?”
Encourage students to write non-stop for the set time about the topic.
Invite students to form groups to further the discussion or engage students in a classroom discussion allowing them to share their ideas.
When to use it:
You can easily use this creative way to engage students at a variety of points in your lesson design. It’s a great way to start a lesson but can just as easily be used during direct instruction or at the end of a lesson as an exit ticket or culminating activity.
Quick Draw
Similar to a Quick Write, this engagement strategy invites students to create a visual representation of a concept within 3-5 minutes. They can use sketches, diagrams, or symbols that relate to the question or prompt.
Benefits:
Allowing students to draw offers an alternative expression of understanding for greater accessibility. It also encourages creativity and can help assess comprehension in a less intimidating way for students who struggle with writing.
How to implement:
Similar to the Quick Write strategy, select a short time limit.
Share a prompt or question that aligns with your lesson objectives. For instance, “What are the steps to the Water Cycle?”
Invite students to draw what comes to mind about the topic for the set time.
Follow up with a class discussion, collaborative activity, or even a Gallery Walk! You can also encourage students to explain their drawings in their own words to foster language development.
When to use it:
Similar to Quick Writes, this strategy can be placed at any point in the lesson. It can serve as an introduction to new material as well as a reflective activity closer to the end of the lesson. It can even be used as a short mid-point review that gets students thinking about the topic in a different way. This is one of the best creative ways to engage younger students, especially, who may still be developing their writing skills.
Popcorn Discussion
This strategy is a higher-energy, student-led discussion format that has students sharing their ideas one at a time like popcorn popping.
Benefits:
Popcorn discussions are an excellent way to boost the energy level in the learning environment. Since students are encouraged to share their own unique ideas, it fosters diverse perspectives on a topic. It also inspires critical listening and thinking skills.
How to implement:
Choose a discussion prompt, question, or topic for students to consider.
Explain that students will be responding directly to the previous student's statement about the topic.
Inform students of the participation rules, such as raising hands to respond and listening respectfully to others.
Set a response time limit. 30 seconds or less per student is often sufficient.
Facilitate by calling on students randomly or drawing names for the order of participation.
When to use it:
While this student engagement idea could be used to introduce a new concept, especially if beginning with a review of prior knowledge, it might be better suited to a mid-point review end or lesson reflective activity. It can also be used to guide large or small group discussions.
Carousel Brainstorming:
In Carousel Brainstorming, students rotate around stations equipped with different prompts or questions as they collaboratively generate ideas on a topic. If you’re looking for creative ways to engage students through movement, this is a great option.
Benefits:
This strategy promotes teamwork, encourages physical movement around the learning space, and helps students create a broader range of ideas. Additionally, collaborative problem-solving and respect for diverse perspectives are baked into the activity.
How to implement:
Prepare 3 to 6 stations around the room with the following:
A prompt, question, or statement that is related to the lesson objective
A board or paper for students to write their ideas.
Set a time limit for students to consider the prompt. Up to 3-5 minutes is ideal.
Encourage students to read the prompt and work collaboratively to brainstorm as many ideas as they can within the set time. They should write them down on the paper and then decide together which is the best one.
Invite students to cross through the rest and keep the best by circling their preferred idea.
Students should rotate through all the stations responding to the prompts together.
When to use it:
Use the best-brainstormed ideas to guide a class discussion, review concepts, or check for understanding. This strategy can be incorporated at any stage of the lesson and is a great way to increase the level of student energy and engagement in the learning process.
Phone a Friend
In the Phone a Friend strategy, students are able to request the assistance of another peer as they consider a topic or prompt. This allows them to approach the topic or concept collaboratively while still promoting individual critical thinking.
Benefits:
This strategy can reduce the anxiety of creating an individual discussion response by providing additional language scaffolding. It also invites students to consider another perspective when crafting the language of their own response.
How to implement:
Choose a prompt, question, or concept that students will need to consider related to the lesson objectives.
Invite students to Phone a Friend by asking another peer for their ideas on the topic.
Encourage students to write down 2 to 3 main points shared by their peers about the topic on a piece of paper or whiteboard.
Provide 5-10 minutes for students to incorporate their peer suggestions and their own background knowledge into a concise statement or paragraph for discussion.
When to use it:
This discussion strategy can be used at any point in the lesson with minor tweaks. It works well for both large and small groups and can provide additional language support for Multilingual learners within the learning environment. This is one of my favorite creative ways to boost student engagement because it encourages collaboration and builds student relationships.
Ready to Take Your Curriculum Development Experience Beyond the Classroom?
As a curriculum developer and curriculum coach, I am always encouraging educators to think of new ways they can foster student engagement and critical thinking. When we lean into discussion but don’t rely solely on speech as evidence of student success, we meet the needs of a diverse set of learners and improve student engagement.
Crafting great curriculum is a skill that opens up many opportunities beyond the classroom, and at Educator Forever, we love helping educators go from teacher to curriculum developer (You can check out some of our many success stories here!).
As a curriculum developer, you can make a significant impact in education with more freedom, flexibility, and work-life balance.
Our Curriculum Development Foundations Program is a 5-week flexible and empowering program designed to give you everything you need to develop engaging curriculum (that meets industry standards), stand out in the job market, and succeed as a curriculum developer.
You'll also be assigned a curriculum coach, an experienced curriculum developer, who will give you support and personalized feedback on your work. You'll walk away from the program with a polished portfolio of curriculum samples and an amazing community supporting you as you step into your career as a curriculum developer.
If you enjoy creating meaningful learning experiences for students, we encourage you to join now and get ready to take your career in education to the next level.
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About the Author
Evonne Hall is the Program Coordinator at Educator Forever. She has spent the majority of her career in the field of education, working in public, private, homeschool, and virtual teaching roles. In 2016, she began teaching ESL online as a side hustle and grew to love the flexibility of teaching online in a variety of teacher marketplaces.
Evonne enrolled in the Educator Forever Network and discovered the additional ways educators could use their superhero skills. She began working in the field of curriculum development, working with TPT sellers and online ESL companies to create individualized and group offerings. With the confidence she gained, she honed in on her zone of genius to help teacherpreneurs build and grow their dream businesses. While Program Coordinator is her primary job function by day, Evonne also enjoys gardening, reading good books, and anything organizing-related.