Hooks for Student Engagement: Launch Your Classroom! Episode 53

When teachers create purposeful lesson hooks, they set the stage for true student engagement! In this episode, Kyle and the LYC team discuss ways to capture student interest prior to starting a new lesson, through real-world contexts and activation of background knowledge. EXPLORE RELATED CONTENT: Student Collaborative Activities: Launch Your Classroom! Episode 48 -    • Student Collaborative Activities: Launch Y...   Maintaining Student Relationships: Launch Your Classroom! Episode 44 -    • Maintaining Student Relationships: Launch ...   Teacher Success Stories II: Launch Your Classroom! Episode 43 -    • Teacher Success Stories II: Launch Your Cl...   Instructional Differentiation: Launch Your Classroom! Episode 39 -    • Instructional Differentiation: Launch Your...   Discover more professional development resources at www.launchyourclassroom.com! Download our books for free every first Friday of the month! - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08... A lesson hook is any short, interesting activity teachers use to capture student interest before teaching new content. Whether it’s watching a brief related video, listening to a song, or getting the chance to express opinions on a variety of topics, these activities are student-centered and need only be somewhat related to the upcoming lesson. Hooking students prior to teaching new content sets the stage for successful learning. Students come to school from a variety of home situations, and taking the time to plan an interesting hook helps to balance the effect of those background experiences. When done effectively, a lesson hook activates prior knowledge, proactively prevents disengagement and student misbehavior, and helps to motivate students by capturing their interests. Real World Hooks for the Classroom is a strategy to use before introducing content that may be challenging to relate to, but necessary for understanding a learning objective. Students are asked a “burning question” loosely based on the upcoming lesson content, and respond to a poll about it. After a brief discussion about responses to the poll, the teacher shares a short segment of current media relating to the “burning question.” This media can be anything from a section of a podcast to a vintage advertisement or any other media. Immediately after viewing or listening to the media, students are given the opportunity to talk about the connections they see between the “burning question” and the media segment. After the lesson, a quick follow-up discussion can reinforce the real life connections students can make with the instructional content. Lesson hooks must be quick in order to be effective and still preserve instructional time, so media needs to be condensed to the shortest form that still communicates the desired real world context. Teachers also need to be mindful of guiding discussions to keep them brief and focused. Although it is important that media be administrator-approved, teachers should still preview to make sure it will be appropriate for a particular class, given their unique background experiences. 1) What parts of my instructional content have my students found difficult to engage with in the past? 2) What kinds of media are my students most interested in, and why? 3) How can I use student polls to explore more of their interests, and how can I use this information for future engagement hooks? Learn more: https://teachwithepi.com/ ▹ Facebook:   / educationalpartnersinternational   ▹ Twitter:   / teachwithepi   ▹ About EPI: https://teachwithepi.com/about-epi