Digital Promise Signature Workspace

Fostering Student Engagement

Sense of belonging and a supportive classroom and school community are the foundation of student engagement. Building onto that foundation with strategies to support SEL, cognition, and content factors is a great next step.

Cognitive Engagement Strategies

Self-monitoring

Math 3-6

When students monitor their comprehension, behavior, or use of strategies, they build their Metacognition.

Self-instructions

Math 3-6

When students engage in a dialogue with themselves, they are able to orient, organize, and focus their thinking.

Reflect on Learning

Math 3-6

Providing space and time for students to reflect is critical for moving what they have learned into Long-term Memory.

Positive Self-talk

Math 3-6

When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.

Encourage Student Self-advocacy

Math 3-6

Actively and authentically encouraging all students to seek support, ask questions, and advocate for what they believe in creates a safe space for risk-taking and skill development and supports a Sense of Belonging.

Cognitively Demanding Tasks

Math 3-6

Providing math tasks with high cognitive demand conveys high expectations for all students by challenging them to engage in higher-order thinking.

Student-generated Problems

Math 3-6

When students create their own number and word problems, they connect math concepts to their background knowledge and lived experiences.

Math Games

Math 3-6

Math games allow students to practice many math skills in a fun, applied context.

Emotional and Relational Engagement Strategies

Building Trusting Relationships

Math 3-6

Building positive and trusting relationships with learners allows them to feel safe; a sense of belonging; and that their academic, cognitive, and social and emotional needs are supported.

Discussing Emotions

Math 3-6

Teaching students how to label, identify, and manage Emotion helps them learn Self-regulation skills.

Foster Growth Mindset

Math 3-6

Teachers can help students understand that learning involves effort, mistakes, and reflection by teaching them about their malleable brain and modeling their own learning process.

Family Engagement

Math 3-6

Family engagement happens when educators and schools collaborate with families to collectively support their child's learning in meaningful ways, both at school and at home.

Mindfulness Breaks

Math 3-6

Short breaks that include mindfulness quiet the brain to allow for improved thinking and emotional regulation.

Collaborative Problem Solving

Math 3-6

As students solve problems in a group, they learn new strategies and practice communicating their mathematical thinking.

Expressive Writing

Math 3-6

Writing freely about one's emotions about a specific activity, such as taking a test, can help students cope with negative Emotion, such as math anxiety.

Behavioral Engagement strategies

Goal Setting & Monitoring

Math 3-6

Setting overall goals, as well as smaller goals as steps to reaching them, encourages consistent, achievable progress and helps students feel confident in their skills and abilities.

Student Choice

Math 3-6

Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful.

Brief Instruction Steps

Math 3-6

Content that is provided in clear, short chunks can support students' Working Memory.

Predictability: Environment & Structure

Math 3-6

Maintaining consistent classroom routines and schedules ensures that students are able to trust and predict what will happen next.

learning science factors that may impact student engagement

Math 3-6

Motivation is the desire and energy that guides behavior.

Math 3-6

Learning is powerful when it is social—when we learn with and from each other.

Math 3-6

Self-regulation skills help students concentrate on learning.

Math 3-6

Emotions are complex psychological states stemming from our positive and negative experiences.

Math 3-6

Math Mindset includes learners' self-concept and self-efficacy beliefs as well as their mindset toward failure, all of which shape their willingness to get involved with mathematics.

Math 3-6

A student's Math Learning Environment encompasses the opportunities provided by their home, school, and community that contribute to their development of math knowledge and skills.

Math 3-6

Attention is the ability to focus on a specific task without being distracted.

Math 3-6

Metacognition refers to the ability to think about our own thinking and to pay attention to and control our cognitive processes.