One of the most difficult things I have struggled with in my two years of teaching is how to keep all the students engaged. Due to the cognitive difficulties, my students require almost individual attention in order to get work done and learn. And when there is only one teacher and usually only one IA, that can leave 9 or 10 kids twiddling their thumbs asking how to do this or that when the instruction is truly individualized, such as when we are working on IEP goals. And when there is whole class instruction, quite a few of my students just sit there and do nothing because of their receptive language difficulties and cognitive processing difficulties.
As a result, when I am doing whole class instruction in my math class, I have done two main things to keep student engagement high. First, when I put problems on the board, I tell the students to show me their answers on individual white boards or their calculators instead of just shouting out the answer. This allows everyone to participate at their own pace. Second, I try to ask engaging questions using words like 'everyone' and 'each student' in those questions instead of 'Can someone' or 'does anybody'. This hopefully helps my students realize that I want everyone at least thinking about how to find the answers.
The bottom line is that keeping my students engaged is a constant struggle for a few reasons - learned helplessness, genuine lack of understanding, and low self-esteem just to name a few. I hope that the biggest thing I do to keep my students engaged is to let them know that giving up and giving in are never options. I try to express belief in them at all times and let them know I love them and want them to be successful!
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