Keeping Students Engaged - Get Them out of Their Seats

The struggle is real. Keeping students' attention can be difficult, especially during a 90-minute class period. There is so much curriculum and content to be covered, and planning the perfect lesson to keep students engaged can be trying. Teachers use a variety of instructional practices and tools within their lessons to keep kids from day dreaming...or worse yet, nodding off. 
One strategy that teachers often use to keep students engaged is to literally get them out of their seat. Many of our math teachers post review problems around the room.

Students completing math problems around the classroom.

Students move throughout the room from one problem to the next, solving each problem. Getting students out of their seat helps to keep them engaged. 

During a Biology activity, a student moves around the lobby completing multiple tasks. 

Teachers often use this same strategy outside the classroom, in a larger space where students can circulate more freely. The photo above shows a Biology student in the lobby. In this activity, students moved through the lobby from one task to another to learn about the Nitrogen cycle. Students rolled dice to determine which effect happened, which in turn moved them to a different event. The teacher moved around the space and randomly assessed student learning.