How do we get every student to stay engaged and participate in group work? How can we be sure that everyone even understands what we’re teaching?

The answer: checking for understanding frequently and making sure our students know that they will be held responsible for showing their learning!

I’m sharing four of my favorite ways to keep students engaged and help you check for understanding as you teach. As always, you will need to make your expectations for participation and movement very explicit before you begin.

1 – Build anchor charts with your students.
The important thing about anchor charts is that they include the biggest ideas and the most relevant information about what you’re teaching.

Start a chart at the beginning of the unit. Frequently add to it (or allow students to do the writing or illustrating) as you teach the unit.

Refer to the anchor chart frequently. Display it on the board as you’re building it, then display it in the classroom so that students can continue to refer to it later.

As students suggest content for the chart, you might even include their names. This makes the chart more relevant to everyone.

2 – Use a silent chart talk.
Create a few open-ended questions about your current topic of study that will encourage students to comment or respond. Write each question on a separate piece of chart marker and post the charts around the room.

Give each student a marker. Their job is to remain silent but move from chart to chart, reading the question and adding a comment or response to each chart. They might also choose to respond to other students’ comments.

Allow enough time for students to move to each chart. (You might have them return to their seats when they’re finished so that you can gauge how much time is needed to finish.)

When everyone is finished, you can use one of the charts to have a whole-class discussion. Or you could assign students to small groups to discuss a chart. You could also save the charts for another day’s discussion.

3 – Use a poster walk to build background knowledge.
This is similar to the silent chart talk, except you might use this strategy at the beginning of a unit. Write questions (such as “what do you notice about this picture?” or “what do you wonder about the American Revolution?”) on separate pieces of chart paper and post them around the room.

Assign students to small groups and choose one student to be the recorder. Have every group start with a different Poster. Give them time to read the question, discuss it with their group, and allow the recorder to write their response on the poster.

Signal them to rotate to the next poster. As students move to the next poster, they might also respond to the previous groups’ comments.

Repeat until everyone has visited every poster. Use these posters as you introduce content in the unit of study.

4 – Create teaching or review posters.
I especially like this strategy for reviewing topics, especially before state testing. But it also works well for creating teaching posters as long as you provide kid-friendly resources for students to use to create their posters.

Assign students to groups and assign each group a specific topic. (Example: Newton’s laws of physics, operations with fractions, branches of government, etc.)

Their job is to research or review their topic together, then create a poster with key points that each person in the group will use to teach their classmates. Allow time to create the posters, then post them around the room or in the hallway.

Now regroup the students, making sure that each poster group has one representative in their new group. (An easy way to do this is to give kids numbers, such as 1-6. Then regroup by grouping all the 1’s together, all the 2’s together, etc.)

As groups move to each poster, the “teacher” who helped create the poster will use it to teach or review with their new group members.

A #sustainableteaching tip: choose structures that are simple to implement (like the ones I’ve shared), but which have a big impact on your students. Then stick to those structures. Finding what works and making it your tried-and-true, go-to strategy will simplify your teaching time!

The post Four Classroom Engagement Strategies for Group Work first appeared on Still Teaching, Still Learning.