7 Strategies for Engaging High School Students
The great news is that active learning strategies can help engage high school students, as long as educators are willing to be creative and set a solid example for their students. Here are 7 different strategies for engaging high school students in the classroom with which educators can experiment.
1. Try team-building activities
Anytime you can put high school students into teams, they will usually feel a sense of competition and want to try harder. Split your students into teams and give the teams a task. You can have each team pick a team name and offer easy-to-fulfill rewards for the winning team.
Within classroom teams, encourage students to engage in ice-breaker and group activities that help them build their teamwork and communication skills. Some examples of activities to have students try include:
Act out classroom material or vocabulary words (like charades)
Come up with different examples of classroom material in the world and sharing with the class
Each team presents one component of the lesson to the class
Some students might be shy and not want to present to the entire class, so each team can assign different roles, like scribes, presenters, timekeepers, researchers, etc. This will not only form unknown bonds between peers, but it could also exemplify what certain students excel at that they otherwise would never have known with just a lecture.
2. Add visual components
Since so many students are visual learners, adding visual components to lessons almost always helps students become more engaged.
You can make visual components even more active by asking the students to create them. For example, you can ask students to create word clouds of different vocabulary words used in a lesson, challenge students to paint pictures based on the lesson of the day, or have students create flashcards. These visual cues from a certain day in class might even stick in their brains longer when it comes time for that inevitable test.
3. Consider fun additions, like music
Music notoriously helps human beings remember information, so bringing music into your lessons can help students engage more actively with the material and solidify the information in their minds. High school students will especially love hearing some of their favorite songs incorporated into what they might have thought was a “boring” lesson.
Depending on the lesson material, some educators have found songs online to help students learn concepts, especially languages. Another great idea is having students make their own songs to remember concepts. They can make up words of the songs to go with famous melodies or popular (appropriate) songs they love.
4. Challenge students to become the teachers
Students engage more when they have to process the information and teach it to someone else, so anytime educators can find a way for students to take ownership of the material, the students will likely be more engaged and absorb the information much more effectively.
The first strategy in this list addressed this very idea with the suggestion that groups could be assigned one concept to teach the class.
Teachers might also consider breaking high school students into groups and having the groups work through an assignment together. This will naturally activate students who understand the material to help teach students with more trouble. New bonds might form, and the material might become more accessible through a peer than through a teacher.
5. Make learning a game
Anytime educators can create a game out of material, students will become more engaged. In high school, it’s important not to make games too kid-like and try to find games that suit the personalities of the students.
Again, competition is a great way to encourage students to put in more effort. Consider breaking students up into teams or having students compete for a prize by answering questions correctly.
As a workable example, have students stand in a single-file line. Each student has to approach the board and try to answer a question correctly. They move to the back of the line when they can't answer the question. The winner is the last person still standing after a certain time. These types of active-listening, active-participation games can influence the absorption of the material in a more organic way. They will remember the answer to a question since “Sandra” got it wrong twice in a row, than if they had just heard it mentioned once in a book.
6. Connect material to current events
Students, especially in high school, are more likely to care about material when they can connect it to the world around them.
So, anytime you’re teaching a new lesson, try to find a connection to a current event. You can explain how the lesson relates to life now, how the lesson has impacted the world and important inventions, or how the history of the lesson has led to the world students live in today.
You can even consider having students research how the material is related to their lives today and present their findings to the class. It will keep the conversations more lively as their modern-day enthusiasm matches the historical context.
7. Lead by example
Of course, students will be more engaged when they have a positive relationship with their teacher and see that the teacher is also engaged.
Hopefully, these active learning strategies will also excite educators to engage in lessons and take some of the stress off of ensuring that all students are paying attention and taking detailed notes during a long lecture.
Not all students will want to engage, even after these strategies, but they will inevitably appreciate the effort and at least remember the material better, even if they do not show enthusiasm at the time.
Besides, who doesn’t have a fond memory of that fun day in class when they played charades or had a mock debate?
