Increase Student Engagement - Tips and Tricks for Eureka Math

We have been full steam ahead using the Eureka Math program for weeks now. 

Sometimes it can be hard to draw the students’ attention in. 

We all have off days. 

​We as teachers even need to be pulled back in at times. Adding in a different approach or arrangement is all you need to help keep your students’ attention and keep the learning fresh!

​You may want to use this time to dig into some of the supplemental materials you have tucked away.  Look into your saved files to see what you love and want to use but just did not have time for yet.  These will help not only supplement your curriculum but also create a new way to present your lessons.

Review Materials
 
Materials used to review concepts your students may need more support with can be found within the Eureka Math program as well as teacher may materials.  If you had to skip some of the pages to keep on schedule, it may be a good time to go back to them.  Students love to see concepts they know.  They will be ready to jump in and get those problems completed.  
 
Digital Instruction Material
 
Integrating some new instructional material digitally can also help create higher student engagement.  You can teach using slide shows like these.  Using these teaching tools help students engage in the material as well as provide some review for concepts.  Students can participate in a lesson debrief as well to help students reflect on their learning.

​White Dry Erase Boards
 
Students can participate in the active engagement portion of the lesson with white dry erase boards and markers.  Alongside many of the digital slideshows, students are given opportunities for participation.  One way is by calculating their math on a whiteboard.  Students can hold up their whiteboards for easy teacher view or raise their hands and share out what answer they got to and how they solved the problem.
 
Partners
 
Provide students opportunities for conversations during problem solving.  Once students are finishing a problem.  They can turn to a partner and show how they solved it.  They can explain the steps they took to solve it.  This not only provides the student who solved the problem a way to validate their thinking, but it also helps them to teach others to solve how they did.  This is great when students explain their thinking and also engage others in math conversations.

Give Student Choice
 
Mix it up!  Display a few choices you can do for an activity.  Give students the opportunity to vote or choose an activity they would like to do in math.  You can provide three activities and let students join groups or take turns completing.
 
You may also want to give a whole class choice of what part of the lesson they complete first.  Sometimes students may want to start with a sprint.  Other times they may want to start with the Lesson Development in the Learn Workbook.  Even though we follow a specific pattern to the Eureka Math lessons, giving it a small rearrangement sometimes will keep students excited and feel like it is a special day.

Student Art Integration
 
Let students break out the crayons, markers, and paint!  Take an application problem a student can solve using the RDW process.  After they are finished, have them publish it in an artful way.  They can use construction paper to really make the picture they used to solve fancy.  You can even assign colors if you would like for students to use to label where they wrote the number sentence, the picture, and the statement.  Color coding is a fun way for students to also be able to explain how they solved the problem and what parts of the problem they created. You can also provide additional application problem choices such as these.

​Student Presentations
 
Allow students time to come to the front of the class and teach all they know.  Allow them to select work they have completed that they feel proud of.  They can present their work to the class and explain their computations.  This will also help you to spot light and celebrate the hard word students have been doing.

Overall, we all need to be refreshed when we have had weeks of working hard. You can be creative and not lose your footing with your math teaching.  Remember to keep kids wanting to do and learn more.  Tap into their creativity and make deeper connections.  You may also draw in some students who need redirection.  All while reinforcing concepts that students need to continue to build on.  A small change can go a long way when it comes to keeping up the math energy needed to keep the learning strong.