NaBloPoMo - Day 12 - Introverts in the Classroom

So many thoughts are buzzing in my head tonight after #EduRead!

#EduRead is a Twitter based "book club" that reads professional educational literature (articles, books, etc) and then discusses them on Wednesday night's at 8pm Central Time.  Tonight we started The Highly Engaged Classroom by Robert Marzano and I have to say I am *pumped* about this book! 


One of the topics that came up in discussion tonight was compiling a list of student engagement strategies to use in our classrooms.  I love this idea, but I struggle with it as well.  I have researched student engagement a lot over the past few years and I have an entire binder full of printouts of engagement strategies.  However, in that huge list of ideas, I know I might use just a fraction of them.

Confession Time
One of the most ironic things in my classroom is that I ask my students to do things that I totally would hate doing. :)  (That's the fun of being the one in charge, right?!?)  For example, today I asked my students to draw a large tic-tac-toe grid on a page in their notebook.  In the top row, they wrote three things they've learned this chapter.  Then they had to get up and go find 6 more people and exchange notebooks with them and write down something in one of the remaining empty squares.  My students likened this to a "yearbook signing party".  They seemed to have fun, but for me, I would have *hated* this as a student. :)

Hi!  I'm Druin and I'm an Introvert!
I am a very introverted person.  I'm not shy, but I definitely like my quiet time and my privacy.  When I'm at workshop or something, I tend to be the person in the back corner that really hates to get up and talk to others.  I find it extremely uncomfortable to step outside of my personal zone and a lot of people think I'm a total snob when they first meet me.  An activity like I did today would drive me crazy as a student, even though I understand the research behind it and fully agree with the *why* to do it.  This introversion comes out in my lesson planning as well because there are a lot of strategies I would not use simply because the strategy would stress me out.  As a result, I tend to use the same strategies (or variations on them) often.

Help me break out of my rut! :)
What are some of your favorite strategies for getting students involved in your classroom?



Today I'm Thankful For:
A working heater!  Monday was a gorgeous 79 degrees.  Today's high was 33.  Oh.Em.Gee.  That's stinking COLD!  Yesterday, hubby was off for Veteran's Day, so he arranged for the heating and air company to come out to do our yearly furnace inspection.  I still can't believe that on Monday the a/c was going and now I need the heater 24/7.  :)