Student Engagement Strategies
Presentation Strategies
Story Board: Using the story board strategy allows students to take notes and understand the course of events visually by creating their own drawings of key events. This a good strategy to use when reading as a class or independently. It is a creative way of taking notes and evaluating reading comprehension. |
Communication Strategies
Question the Author: Questioning the author while a student reads creates interaction with the text, not just passive reading of it and creates deeper meaning of the information. The teacher can designate stopping points within the text so students can remember to stop and think critically about what they've read. After reading is finished, the teacher can ask questions or facilitate a group discussion to answer the student's questions and get them to think critically about what they just read. Socratic Seminar: A socratic seminar allows students to question and analyze a text and practice discussion and listening skills. Students must begin the socratic seminar with questions and analyses ready to go in order to have a fruitful conversation. Gallery Walk: A gallery walk is set up in such a way that students are up and moving in a calm and orderly fashion while engaging with information. This can be used to show off projects in a seminar style of presentation. It can also be used to examine multiple sources of information briefly but critically. Students would have an objective like a worksheet with questions or to take a certain number of notes for each station. |
Collection
Analyzing Images: Students closely analyze images to develop historical context about the image the time in which it was created, think critically about the image and its creation, and develop analysis and observation skills. This can be done with photographs, political cartoons, videos, propaganda, or any other form of visual text. |
Organization Strategies
Human Timeline: A human timeline combines the visual benefit of a timeline which helps students understand a sequence of events and historical perspective with collaborative and kinesthetic features. By giving each student a piece of a timeline, they must collaborate to put all the events in order. They must do so physically which helps students remember the order of events. Two-Column Note Taking: Two-column note taking combines traditional note taking with interaction with your notes to better understand the mateiral. Students take notes in one column and interact with the notes in another column. This interaction can be questions they still have or analysis of the material. Students can use this note taking method to prepare for discussion like a socratic seminar and can be used to evaluate student understanding. Chunking: Chunking breaks down a complex text into smaller, managable pieces. You could have students summarize each part read or combine another strategy with it like questioning the author to really analyze a full piece of text bit by bit. |