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As a teacher with teaching counselling skills, you are likely to find that some students are just harder to reach during classroom instruction time who may totally be disinterested to engage themselves in the learning process. In such situations, it can really be a challenge to engage students in learning. To find out the reasons behind such behaviour from the students, let’s put ourselves in their shoes.
 

Did you ever feel in a faculty meeting that the school leaders at your school were completely blind to the needs of their teachers? Have you ever felt that your voice doesn’t matter, this feeling can really be isolating and defeating, taking a toll on one’s level of involvement and effort?
 

While it is true that for the most part, you might not have control over how your school administrators value you as an educator, you do have a say in how your students feel in your classroom. Unlike in a traditional classroom, where the teachers are the speakers instructing all the way and the students, mere listeners and followers, in modern classrooms, the learning and teaching methods have progressed phenomenally. Certain studies have shown how there is a strong connection between student autonomy and student engagement in the classroom.
 

This kind of shift is not necessarily an easy task, particularly for teachers who have been in the classroom for a really long period of time. We have shared here a few ways you can modify your current classroom methods and teaching strategies to incorporate more student choices and also change your role as “the sage on the stage” in your classroom.
 

3 Steps to Engage Disinterested Students
 

1. If you have asked a question to your student, stop yourself from answering it. Instead ask your students to discuss with a partner and justify their thinking. You can even give them an example like, “I think the answer is ____ because today I learned that ____.”
    
2. To show their learning, instead of giving students one independent assignment to complete, give them several ways to show what they have learned at the end of the class period. You can give them the popular three-way example - “Talk about it, write about it, draw about it” method where students have the liberty to either videotape or record themselves communicating their new knowledge, write a brief essay explaining what they’ve learned or draw an illustration showcasing their main takeaways from the lesson.
    
3. Provide surveys to your students to measure how they feel about the class and what changes they would make if they were the teacher. You can use Google Forms to create surveys in a flash so that your students can give you confidential, focused feedback to drive your classroom instruction and structure.
    

At the end of the day, your job is not to make every student happy every time. But your job is to ensure that your students find your classes engaging and are learning at the deepest and most meaningful level. Why not enrol for counselling courses for teachers and learn other various methods to engage your students in the classroom and see how it impacts the vibe of your classroom?