Should students wear uniforms in school

 Use students’ interests and fascinations
Find out what your students are passionate about and then use those interests as natural motivators to increase engagement. Whether a child is fixated on one thing or has a few areas of intense interest, there are many simple strategies you can use to work those fascinations into your instruction. The result? Happier, more motivated students.
In “Just Give Him the Whale!”, Paula Kluth and Patrick Schwarz offer these and many other suggestions on how to use student interests to boost learning in key areas:

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  Literacy. Allow a child to integrate their most-loved characters and possessions into your classroom reading time. One student was able to participate in reading circle when his turn came once he was allowed to speak through a favorite puppet.
  
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  History. Find creative ways to adapt standards-based content to the fun things your students are excited about. For example, one history teacher explained the U.S. role in the UN and its relationship to other nations by drawing an analogy with Super Friends characters.
  
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  Math. If you’re working on a math lesson, consider asking a student to write a problem, diagram, or pattern that relates to her particular area of interest. Sometimes, the best way to combine academic material with a student’s interests may not be immediately evident—but your students may see connections that you don’t!
  

To help you discover what your students are passionate about, download these student surveys from “Just Give Him the Whale!” And read this excerpt from the book to learn more about innovative ways to use student interests in the classroom! 

Give students choices

As Rapp & Arndt note in Teaching Everyone, engagement increases whenever students are empowered to make their own choices about how they learn. Here are a few suggestions:

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  Group students. Breaking the class up in groups increases the likelihood that everyone will contribute to class discussion and problem solving. Poll your students about their working preference, or experiment with breaking them up in different ways. Divide the class in half, group students in small teams of three or four, or put them in pairs.
  
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