Listen Now!
Teachers know just how important engagement is in a classroom. Not only do students need to be engaged to learn, but engaging lessons are also essential to successful classroom management. While there are TONS of strategies out there, Caitlin and Jessica offer listeners one very simple way to create engagement in the classroom: use music! We think these practical and fun ideas will be just what you need to add some spark and wonder to your lessons as this school year comes to a close!
Tune in now to hear:
- [:48] Caitlin welcomes listeners back to the podcast where she and Jessica celebrate their birthdays and share a new approach to increase engagement in your classroom as the school year winds down.
- [1:53] While there seem to be a ton of strategies to increase engagement, it can be difficult to realistically prepare and incorporate all these ideas.
- [2:38] Music is a super simple way to capture students’ attention before and during a lesson, and Jessica discusses just how useful this tool can be in your classroom.
- [3:26] Jessica then offers a few ideas to utilize music to create an enjoyable classroom environment that will, in turn, lead to participation and retention of knowledge for your learners.
- [5:28] Caitlin lists some questions that you can ask yourself to brainstorm ways to utilize music in the classroom:
- How can I use music to enhance my lesson?
- What type of music or specific song can I use for this particular lesson or unit?
- Which songs contain lyrics that are relevant to the topic I am teaching?
- Can I ask my students which songs they can think of that relate to the topic we are studying?
- How can I effectively use music as students enter my classroom?
- Can I play a particular song when students transition from one activity to the next?
- How can I use music to end my lesson with an impact?
- [6:35] Next, Jessica walks listeners through a couple examples incorporating music into a whole-class novel unit.
- [9:27] One easy way to plan for using music during the school year is to consider the novels and short stories you plan to teach throughout the year and what songs relate to themes and lessons from each text. Caitlin shares an easy way to brainstorm during your planning!
- [10:16] Writing lessons can be impacted through music, as well, and Caitlin offers some ideas to add to your seasonal writing units in particular.
- [12:07] Students can also participate in selecting the songs/music you choose to use in the classroom, which is yet another way to pull them into a lesson, engaging them in their learning.
- [13:55] Caitlin encourages listeners to be on the look out for an exciting workshop experience all about student engagement coming this summer!
Register now for our FREE summer workshop!
https://www.ebteacher.com/engagement
Subscribe & Review in iTunes
Are you subscribed to our podcast? If you’re not, we want to encourage you to do that today. We don’t want you to miss a single episode. We add a brand-new episode every week, and if you’re not subscribed, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on those. Click here to subscribe in iTunes!
Now if you’re feeling extra awesome today, we would be super grateful if you left us a review over on iTunes, too. Those reviews help other people find our podcast, and they’re also so much fun for us to go in and read. Just click here to review by scrolling down our show page, selecting a star rating, and tapping “Write a review.” Let us know what your favorite part of the podcast is. You’ll receive a free sentence/fragment activity resource. Just screenshot it before submitting it and email it to us at caitlinandjessica@ebacademics.com with the subject line TMSELA Review| Sentence Fragment Activity. Thank you!
