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6 Exercises
to Get to Know Your Students Better—and Increase Their Engagement
Celebrating your middle and high school students' unique
identities can bolster connections and improve performance in school.
By Nora
Fleming
November 12, 2020
Hindered by video screens, fluctuating schedules, and health
regulations, teachers are up against the odds this school year when it comes to
getting to know their students.
While get-to-know-you activities are typically earmarked for
the first weeks of school, they shouldn’t end there, say educators and
researchers.
Whether it’s that they love to play baseball, have three
brothers, or enjoy writing or photography, celebrating your students’ unique
experiences and identities can bolster connections that keep them engaged and performing better in school. Students
who have a deeper sense of self—and purpose—are also better able to define their
goals and stay focused on pursuing them, concluded a 2014 study from David
Yeager, Angela Duckworth, and colleagues.
We collected an array of class exercises from interviews
with teachers, online resources, and our archives that will help students
develop greater self-awareness and purpose. These insights can also give you a
better sense of who they are, so you can be responsive to their interests—even
if you’re separated by screens or masks.
Reflecting on Experiences: ‘Laws of
Life’ Essays
In the early 2000s, educators in an urban, high-poverty
district in New Jersey gave their middle and high school students an
interesting essay assignment: Write about the values and principles that guide
your life.
The seemingly small activity, called “Laws of Life,” is
based on the work of philanthropist John Templeton, and it turned into a much bigger project that helped students develop
a stronger sense of self, purpose, and possibility for the future, according to
Maurice Elias, a psychology professor at Rutgers University. The project has
since been replicated all over the world.
To run the assignment in your class, Elias
recommends asking students to reflect on their past—in and out of school—and
the experiences and people that made them who they are. From there, have
students discern key characteristics that have influenced their lives and then
craft an essay—or create a video or other multimedia content—focused on the
“laws” or principles that drive them.
Question prompts like “Who do you admire? List three of
their admirable traits” and “Describe an incident or event from which you
learned a lesson ‘the hard way’” can help guide students. Periodically
throughout the year, have students refer back to their essays to reflect on
what they wrote and ask themselves, “What’s changed?” and “What’s stayed the
same?”
Exploring Identity—and Perceptions
About It: Identity Charts
To get to know her students and ensure that they felt seen
in her classroom, middle school teacher Shane White created a lesson to help them explore their
identities. First, White set a foundation for discussion by defining identity
and explaining how identities can sometimes be visible, like age, or invisible,
like a person’s life experiences.
Then, with the permission of six of her friends, White
shared photos of their faces and had students guess their “identity
characteristics.” Afterward, she revealed the true details and led a class
discussion about making assumptions about others based on how they look or act.
To finish the project, students drew their own “identity portraits” or a
picture of their face with half the face showing visible characteristics and
the other half showing invisible characteristics.
The education organization Facing History and Ourselves
recommends a similar exercise called the “Who am I?” activity for middle school students.
To start, select some key historical figures or fictional characters—think
inclusively and avoid stereotypes, selecting a wide range of people from
different backgrounds—and ask students to discuss “factors such as religion,
gender, and geography” that influenced their identities.
Next, have students read the chapter “My Name” from the book
The House on Mango Street, where the main character, Esperanza, talks
about her name, revealing details about her culture. Ask students to create an
identity chart for Esperanza, answering questions such as “What is her family
like?” and “What does her name reveal about her personality?” Guided by the
reading, students can then create identity charts for themselves and share them
with the class.
Learning Important Details: Student
Inventories
Student inventories can help teachers quickly discern
details and facts about students that shape who they are, and can be used to
plan further class activities and lessons. Ask students to list their favorite
musicians, songs, sports, activities, games, or food, for example, or probe
deeper with questions about their culture, memories, and family.
Another option is having students write 20 sentences that
complete the prompt, “I am someone who…” or asking a short list of
thought-provoking questions in one-to-one Hopes and Dreams conferences. Target questions
that tap into who students are now and who they hope to be, such as “What are
some things that bug you about the world?” “What inspires you?” and “What
dreams do you have after high school?”
Look for patterns in student responses, and use what you
learn to make classroom lessons and activities connected
to students’ interests, advises Rebecca Alber, an education professor in
California, who says, “Students need to see connections between learning and
their lived experiences.”
Understanding Interests: Passion
Blogging
In Allison Berryhill’s high school English class, literary
analysis exercises left her students “frozen,” and free-writing assignments
produced hard-to-read rants. Influenced by the book Beyond
Literary Analysis, Berryhill started offering a new exercise
called “passion blogging” last year, in which students
write about topics that interest them.
Students start by drawing “heart maps,” or large hearts
filled with illustrations and words that represent their passions. Then, they
select one or two topics to explore further and look for related articles,
images, and videos. Berryhill also gives accompanying class lessons on
attribution of sources, texts, quotes, and imagery, and shares mentor texts to
guide students’ writing.
Students’ blogs have run the gamut in subject matter, from
pheasant hunting to hunger strikes to hiking, and give them an opportunity to
dive deeply into things they care about. As part of the process, students are
also tasked with reading and evaluating several of their classmates’
blogs. Overall, the low-stakes activity has served as a springboard to build
students’ literary analysis skills for harder assignments, says Berryhill,
while helping her get to know them better.
Documenting Your Life: Movies,
Photos, and Podcasts
Though many teachers and students are feeling virtual brain
drain, digital tools can provide new, creative outlets for students to share
and define their interests and personalities. Teachers are having students
create autobiographical mini-movies or trailers about their lives and produce podcasts or write articles for digital school newspapers on issues they care
about.
Influenced by her community’s experiences during the
pandemic, Wendy McElfish, a high school teacher in California, taught a lesson
on Dorothea Lange’s famous black-and-white photography from the Great
Depression. Then, she had her students take their own photos with phones to
document their lives. She guided them with the themes “life outside your door,”
“through a window,” “different life inside,” and “porch photos of your family.”
George Lucas Educational Foundation
High school students in Wendy
McElfish's class documented their lives during the pandemic with photography.
"When kids are faced with terrible circumstances, sometimes
it helps to take an artistic approach,” she said. “A lot of kids aren’t good
writers, but they have an eye and they have a voice... [and] they can show the
world what I see.”
Similarly, Lori Wenzinger, a middle school social studies
teacher in South Carolina, paired up with a local photographer to create a
three-week multimedia project called “Finding Your Joy.” After the photographer taught
two classes on photo composition and mood, students were tasked with taking
photos that “capture joyful moments throughout their day,” sharing and
reviewing them as a class, and selecting their three favorites to keep in the
class Google Drive.
Having Fun: Icebreakers, Games, and
Accolades
In addition to more comprehensive assignments and lessons,
teachers can build in short, entertaining activities that keep students engaged
and reveal insights about who they are.
Trevor Boffone, a high school teacher in Texas, asked his
students to submit their favorite song to a list at the start of the year. Now,
at the beginning of each virtual class, he plays music to kick things off,
incorporating students’ picks and his own.
Throughout remote learning, Cathleen Beachboard, a middle
school teacher in Virginia, says she’s including fun activities like
show-and-tells and theme days. This fall, she also adopted a practice that her
superintendent uses for staff meetings called “Three Cool Things I’ve Seen.”
Once a week, Beachboard calls out three things she’s observed about students
from classes that week that recognize them for their individuality.
“I know a lot of teachers are struggling right now getting
students pulled in. I found the more encouragement and authentic praise we give
to students, the more they dive in,” she said. “These are scary times, but by
giving students time to showcase their individuality, they will feel safe and
ready to fully engage in learning.”
