ENGAGE, MOTIVATE STUDENTS

JOSEPH PAULO B. PUSE With the holiday break coming up, students become a little restless and don’t seem to want to keep still and learn. Teachers have to exert extra effort just to motivate students to listen and absorb the lessons.

Teachers have to think of activities that would engage students, but these are usually “snowballed” by the excitement of the holidays. Teachers can provide effective ways to maintain the learning momentum.

Learning is not confined inside the four corners of the classroom. Even holiday activities can be avenues for learning. For example, students can learn lessons which are designed around a specific theme - like the holidays.

Another way is project-based learning, which is considered as the ultimate student engagement tool. It shifts the responsibility of learning to the students and can provide incentives for students to be attentive and productive.

Students should create an “intellectual box” within any projectbased learning lesson, which includes a specific time limit, available materials and resources, as well as clear expectations of the final project goals. What would also help is providing students with a rubric that illustrates what the differences are between a good project, an acceptable one, and a poor one.

This will also provide a teacher with an easy and fair way to grade the final projects. *** The author is Teacher II of Sitio Culubasa Elementary School.