How to engage students

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Social Studies Teachers Chatboard

How to engage students

by pulling my hair out!

Mar 23, 2013

I teach 8th grade world history. I have tried every method I can think of to engage my students. My lectures are full of activites that are sprinkled throughout the ppt. I incorporate interactive notebooks, group work, drawings, reading, writing, buddies..etc.. the problem.......my students are bored and complain about everything that I do!!! (I spend about 10-15 hrs on one ppt) I am really lost as to what I can to do to help my students' regain their interest in my class. What other methods can I implement? I have asked them on several different occassions, why they have started being disresptful, unmotivated, and lazy. Their response..." We used to love your class. Ever since you started doing common core, we hate it." HELP!!! What can I do to make it through the rest of the school year? How can I change their attitude?

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History Teacher On 3/23/13, pulling my hair out! wrote: How do you see Common Core as having changed your class? A new textbook? New testing methods? Clearly you're using the same instructional methods as always so what as you see it is different? Or when you say you've tried every instructional method is that only since you've switched over to Common Core?
<...See MoreOn 3/23/13, pulling my hair out! wrote: How do you see Common Core as having changed your class? A new textbook? New testing methods? Clearly you're using the same instructional methods as always so what as you see it is different? Or when you say you've tried every instructional method is that only since you've switched over to Common Core?

I'd suggest not using powerpoints except possibly one day a week. Powerpoints can become lectures with visuals. Powerpoints were a novelty when they first came out but now everybody's using them.

That they didn't complain before doesn't mean necessarily that they were actually interested in the material... enjoying the class and finding it interesting aren't one and the same thing. The most popular teacher in our school has the most boring (and inaccurate) science classes I've ever seen. I've had kids tell me I really don't like Social Studies but I like this class. Social Studies is bohring. They put this interesting emphasis on the first syllable of bor-ing. They're not remotely interested in the battles of the American Revolution and don't seem to be particularly interested in the fact that we won it. What they like is that I don't let them take notes and they're required to take notes in all their other classes. But they so hate taking notes that in a class where they're actually not allowed to take notes, it's a novelty, a breather and feels like a welcome breather. That's what they enjoy and find interesting - it's not the material.

> I teach 8th grade world history. I have tried every method > I can think of to engage my students. My lectures are full > of activites that are sprinkled throughout the ppt. I > incorporate interactive notebooks, group work, drawings, > reading, writing, buddies..etc.. the problem.......my > students are bored and complain about everything that I > do!!! (I spend about 10-15 hrs on one ppt) > I am really lost as to what I can to do to help my > students' regain their interest in my class. What other > methods can I implement? > I have asked them on several different occassions, why they > have started being disresptful, unmotivated, and lazy. > Their response..." We used to love your class. Ever since > you started doing common core, we hate it." HELP!!! What > can I do to make it through the rest of the school year? > How can I change their attitude?

Mar 23, 2013

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What does that even mean? On 3/23/13, pulling my hair out! wrote: > I teach 8th grade world history. I have tried every method > I can think of to engage my students. My lectures are full > of activites that are sprinkled throughout the ppt. I > incorporate interactive notebooks, group work, drawings, > reading, writing, buddies..etc.. the problem.......my &g...See More

Mar 23, 2013

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Chuck Not sure what your ppts are like, but I embed video clips, pictures, and other visuals to spike interest. Try to use visuals that link world historical people, places and things to modern ones here in the US. Get them to connect the dots, so to speak. Forget a plethora of activities and focus on two to three per block, or one or two if you teach pe...See More

Mar 26, 2013

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History Teacher Engaged in this context means holding their interest. We went to see a movie the other night that I thought was terrible but we'd paid $10 a piece to see it so my husband wouldn't let us walk out. I picked up my Iphone and started playing Online Scrabble - I was not engaged by the film. He was in the sense he continued to watch it but that's it. No...See More

Mar 28, 2013

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