3 Tips for Engaging Your Students From the Start

You may be familiar with the quote from motivational author, Louise Hay:

“How you start your day is how you’re going to live your day. And how you live your day is the way you live your life.”

I’m a firm believer that how you start your class can make all the difference in how that class goes.  Mindset does matter, and establishing a positive mindset that is open to learning at the beginning of class, can help set the tone for the rest of class. So, here are 3 tips for engaging your students from the start.

1. 1. Open with Prayer – As catechists, we should never pass up any opportunity to bring prayer and periods of reflection into the classroom.  Opening class with a prayer helps to set the mood and tone for the next hour.   If the class is large, I generally lead the prayer myself, rather than have everyone join in.  One of my favorite prayers to use at the beginning of class is:
      Lord Jesus, we invite you into our classroom today.
      Bless our minds and fill them with knowledge and wonder about your world.
      Open our eyes to all our education offers us each day, and help us learn your ways.
      Fill our mouths with kind words that show appreciation to our teachers, classmates, and friends.
      Forgive us when we forget that you are our guest.
      Thank you for dwelling in our hearts, our classroom, and our school with your spirit, grace, and love.
      We ask all of this through you, our greatest teacher of all.
      Amen.
      
      Adapted from: Manion, Betty  (2012-04-26). Prayers Before the Bell: Inviting Christ Into the Classroom (Kindle Locations 142-156). Liguori Publications. Kindle Edition.
      
      There are many options for  prayers for the classroom.  You can use the Sunday Gospel reading, or tailor a prayer or verse from Scripture that relates to that day’s lesson.  Feel free to be creative and enhance the prayer by having individual students lead the prayer, light a candle, or read an accompanying verse from scripture.
   2. Introduce the Topic – Get Their Attention – After you’ve set the mood with an opening prayer – dive straight into your Introduction.  This is where you get your students’ attention.  This can be through a short video clip, a song, an anecdote, a Bible verse, asking a thought provoking question of the class, a quote, or even a joke. The idea here is to use something impactful to get their attention, and motivate them to want to listen and hear more.
   3. Tell Students What You Expect Them to Learn – Now that you have your students’ attention, preview the lesson for them.  Tell them what they will learn today, and how they will demonstrate that they’ve learned it.    This can be as simple as saying, “Today we will begin our study of the Apostle’s Creed.  We will discuss many things, but your objective today is to be able to identify the four pillars of the Catholic faith, distinguish between Theological, scientific and philosophical truths, explain what it means that our faith is both monotheistic and Trinitarian, and explain in your own words why God, who is almighty and all powerful, gives us free will.”  The idea here is to let the class know they have a responsibility and lets them know what they need to focus on.

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