Student Engagement

Who is Doing the Work?

Back in 2006 in my second year of teaching, I had a post-observation conference with a principal, of which I thought I excelled. One of her first pieces of feedback came in the form of a question: Who was doing the work? That's when I knew I did a poor job, since I was doing the work through mostly whole-group, direct instruction.

Fast-forward to 2020. Two major benefits came out of COVID:

Most schools nationwide secured funding for one-to-one technology for students.
Most teachers were provided some form of PD regarding how to teach remotely and therefore asynchronously.

Components of Effective Student Engagement in 2025:

Student Choice
Student Voice
Individual Student Whiteboards and Digital Student Whiteboards
No-Tech, Low-Tech, and High-Tech Student Responses
No-Tech, Low-Tech, and High-Tech Cross-Curricular Project-Based Learning
Asynchronous Learning
Personalized Learning
Multiple Assessment Options
Fostering Students as Teachers
Flexible Grouping
Incorporation of Emerging Technologies

No Tech

Individual Student Whiteboards

Probably the easiest, most affordable, and most effective means of formative assessing. Individual student whiteboards can be easily created at a home improvement store such as Lowe's or Home Depot. They come in large sheets. Figure out how large you'd like each student board to be, do some math, and you'll walk out with a class set of student whiteboards!

Be creative in your use! You can have two students share one whiteboard. You could have a table group share a whiteboard. You could have students checking each others' whiteboards. Have fun with them while you are also taking note of who needs assistance!