George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

Student Engagement

What strategies really work to involve students in their own learning? Discover and share ideas.

  • The Benefits of Sharing Our Planning With Students

    Explaining the intentions behind a lesson plan can boost engagement and help students get back on track when something isn’t working.
    Mark Gardner

  • Using Learning Stations to Kick Off the Year

    An engaging way for students to get to know each other, review the syllabus, and decide on classroom agreements.
    Angelina Murphy

  • 8 Proactive Classroom Management Tips

    New teachers—and experienced ones too—can find ideas here on how to stop disruptive behavior before it begins.
    Youki Terada

  • A Student-Driven Approach to Experiential Learning

    See how a Reggio Emilia–inspired elementary school in Australia fosters student interests to spark curiosity and joy in learning.

  • 6 Strategies for Building Better Student Relationships

    A teacher shares her best practices for establishing strong relationships with her class at the start of the school year.
    Cicely Woodard

  • A Student-Centered Model of Blended Learning

    When educators at a Washington, DC, high school ditched their lectures and devised a self-paced blended learning model, their students thrived.

  • How to Keep Your Elementary Students Focused

    5 research-backed tips to keep your elementary students on-task.

  • 30 Techniques to Quiet a Noisy Class

    Most teachers have a method of calling for quiet, and we’ve collected a variety of good ideas for elementary, middle, and high school.
    Todd Finley

  • Teaching Students How to Ask Productive Questions

    Improve engagement, comprehension, and critical thinking by teaching students the process of asking insightful questions.
    Laura Lee

  • A Public School Transitions to Montessori

    In rural South Carolina, a Title I school makes the leap to become a Montessori school.

  • 19 Big and Small Classroom Management Strategies

    Successful classroom management relies on a handful of fundamental strategies and a larger number of quick interventions.
    Todd Finley

  • Breaking the Ice With Student-Made Videos

    Combining the six-word memoir with a film containing six shots gives students a way to introduce themselves at the beginning of the year.
    Marcos Cortez

  • 5 Highly Effective Teaching Practices

    We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it's essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it's important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than "always trying something new" is the reason behind why we do what we do.
    Rebecca Alber

  • Podcasting Creates an Audience for Student Storytellers

    A six-phase process for podcast design guides students to an engaging final product in an interdisciplinary project-based learning unit.
    Suzie Boss

  • 5 Quick Classroom-Management Tips for Novice Teachers

    When it comes to managing a classroom, new teachers mostly learn on the fly, but here are some ideas you can use right away.
    Rebecca Alber