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Flexible seating gives students the choice to determine where they feel most comfortable and what situation helps them learn.

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A veteran elementary teacher shares what he's learned from eight years of building a student-centered environment.

A look inside Tom Deris's classroom

Nine years ago, I starting thinking about changing the layout of my classroom-the traditional classroom structure that had gone largely unchanged since I was a child. I'm now in my eighth year exploring flexible seating with my second and third grade students.

I started by asking students to help me come up with design ideas and to brainstorm ways to transform our classroom with the furniture we had at the time. I knew that if that step went well, I could add more furniture in time.

Each year I add one new type of seating. I started with ball chairs, and then added tables with wheels and wobble stools. In recent years, I've added office chairs and scoop rockers. I've won several grants over the last eight years to collect my nontraditional seating options, which now include: 14 tables with wheels, eight wobble stools, six lap desks, six scoop rockers, four ball chairs, four office chairs, and four standing station spots. I still have 10 regular chairs.

How It Works

In the fall, I typically arrange the room the way I want it. My students and I spend time in the first several weeks of school going over rules and expectations. Once our classroom community has the necessary foundation and expectations, I do a lesson on each of the separate seating options and ask all students to explore all of them.

After students have explored the room and tried all the seating options, I ask them to help me figure out the room's layout for the year. Having student input is extremely important to me, and I often tell my students it's our classroom, not just mine. I want them to want to come to school and learn in a space that reflects them.

I then have the students help me create rules for flexible seating, and we hang up posters for each option that my students can refer to throughout the year when needed. For example, with the ball chairs, students are asked to have their feet on the floor at all times and to avoid excessive bouncing. If students aren't following the rules, we review them so everyone is clear about what's expected.

I'd encourage any teacher interested in experimenting with flexible seating to go slow, pick one thing to add to your classroom, and continue to add items slowly. I strongly suggest buying quality over quantity. I typically only purchase items that are plastic and can be wiped down, and I avoid fabric-with the exception of my office chairs-because it's hard to keep clean.

One thing teachers need to keep in mind in shifting to flexible seating is how they're going to use storage. Each of my students has a work bin-a plastic tray that fits into our standard mailbox slots-where they store their notebooks and folders. Each student also has a Tupperware supply bin with markers, crayons, and colored pencils. The work and supply bins have set locations so students know where their things are, no matter where they choose to sit.

Every type of seating option has pros and cons. Teachers have to think through how they're going to manage, store, and use each and every piece of flexible seating, which is why I encourage teachers to not buy a full set of anything at first-I still don't have a full set of any type of seating. Kids are different, and they like different things. Having different types of seating gives students options.

Each month, students help me select their new work spots. In addition to the work spots, students have a row spot (for whole group instruction), circle spot (for morning meeting), math spot, reading spot, pod spot (for collaborative times like science experiments), and a test spot (where all students have a flat surface for testing). We tend to use the work spots the most.

Classroom Management

Students are unique-and so are groups of students. Some years, my students have needed a lot of structure and little to no freedom. Other years, my students have been able to have total freedom. For flexible seating to work, teachers have to know their students and what they can and can't handle. So at the beginning of the year, I take time to get to know my students, and I have more of a say in where they sit. As they come to understand the different seating options, I give them more freedom. On occasion, students don't work well with one type of seating, and I give them limited access to that type. Strong classroom management is key to this model.

Each year, I also focus on something new to make my classroom more student-centered. Some years I've focused on technology integration or collaborative spaces. This year, I've worked to create more spaces for those students who prefer to work alone when given the opportunity.

I often ask myself if I would want to be a student in my own classroom. After eight years of trial and error, I feel like I can say yes. I truly enjoy my classroom-it's a unique, comfortable, student-friendly place to learn. But I'm still excited about brainstorming with my students on how to make it even better next year.

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Designing Flexible Seating With Students

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A veteran elementary teacher shares what he's learned from eight years of building a student-centered environment.

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Classroom decor should be engaging but not distracting; featuring things such as student work, inclusive role models and visual aids.

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What you put on your classroom walls can affect your students' ability to learn.

The walls in Kenita Sutherland's classroom are lively but not overwhelming.

Heavily decorated classrooms can bombard students with too much visual information, interfering with their memory and ability to focus, a new study finds.

This is just the latest study to examine the relationship between classroom environment and students' executive functions, which include skills like memory, attention, and self-regulation. While teachers have good intentions when decorating, many classrooms end up being "sensory-rich" in a way that "could hamper children's learning gains rather than help," according to psychologists Pedro Rodrigues and Josefa Pandeirada, who coauthored the study.

To understand how decorations affect learning, Rodrigues and Pandeirada recruited 64 children between 8 and 12 years old to perform attention and memory tasks in two groups. For the high-decoration group, the walls of the room were covered with numerous pictures of ordinary objects and scenes, such as cars, musical instruments, and trees. Walls in the control group's room, on the other hand, were bare.
© Kendra Caralis
The children performed a series of tasks designed to test their attention and memory. In one attention test, for example, they observed a laptop screen, pressing a button if an X appeared and doing nothing if a K appeared. In a memory test reminiscent of the electronic game Simon Says, the children observed nine blue squares that changed to yellow in varying sequences, which the children attempted to repeat. A total of four tests were given-two for memory and two for attention.

Compared to children in the bare-wall room, children in the high-decoration room performed worse on all tests, which suggests that too much visual stimulus can be a distraction.

"Overall, the results from these studies indicate that children could have difficulty in ignoring visual distractors when these are embedded in the surrounding environment," the study authors explain.

Classrooms Should Be Engaging, Not Distracting

That's not to say that every wall must be bare. In 2015, a team of researchers in the U.K. analyzed 153 classrooms and found that students benefited most when the walls had some decorations. "The displays on the walls should be designed to provide a lively sense to the classroom, but without becoming chaotic in feel. As a rule of thumb, 20 to 50 percent of the available wall space should be kept clear," the researchers wrote.

Display student work. Students not only feel a greater sense of responsibility for their learning but are also more likely to remember the material (Barrett et al., 2015).

Feature inspiring role models. Putting up images-and short stories or quotes-featuring heroes and leaders can help students gain a greater sense of belonging and aspiration, especially when their backgrounds and interests are represented. Strive for inclusion, but avoid token or stereotypical representations-they can be damaging to students' self-esteem (Cheryan et al., 2014).

Avoid clutter. Keep at least 20 percent of your wall space clear, and leave ample space between displays so they don't look disorganized. Resist the temptation to keep adding decorations-it's better to swap them out than to keep adding more (Barrett et al., 2015).

Visual aids-like anchor charts, maps, and diagrams-are OK. Posters that reinforce a lesson, rather than distract from it, can boost student learning. But don't forget to take down ones that are no longer helpful (Carney & Levin, 2002; Bui & McDaniel, 2015).

Avoid displays of student scores or grades. Many teachers use data walls to motivate students, and while they can work for high performers, they can backfire for struggling students, leading to feelings of shame and demoralization (Marsh et al., 2014).

Let in natural light. Don't cover up your windows with decorations unless you have a problem with glare or outside distractions. Students who are exposed to more natural light in their classrooms outperform peers who get less natural light in math and reading (Cheryan et al., 2014). If you don't have windows, making sure the room is well lit can boost achievement (Barrett et al., 2015).

Balance wall colors. You don't have to stick with four white walls-try having a single feature wall painted a bright color, with the rest being muted (Barrett et al., 2015).

So what do researchers say teachers should do?

Developing Brains

While decorating walls is a favorite pastime for many teachers, young children may not respond as teachers hope.
Courtesy of Amy Mileham
"Our findings could be related to the fact that children's cognitive capacities are still under development, including executive functions responsible for the filtering of irrelevant information for a given task," explain the study authors. A teacher may have little difficulty ignoring a wall full of decorations, but young students may find themselves unable to look away and focus on a lesson.

Children aren't born with fully developed executive functions-they have to develop these skills over time, according to Harvard's Center on the Developing Child. Children who have adverse experiences-such as neglect, abuse, or violence-or learning disabilities are at greater risk of impaired attention and self-regulation skills. So classroom distractions may be harming the students who need the most help.

The Third Teacher
© Nichole Murray
This study is the latest in an emerging field looking at classrooms as the third teacher-after parents and the teacher-which views the environment as essential to supporting learning. The idea is hardly new; approaches such as Reggio Emilia and Montessori put it at the forefront of pedagogy, giving classrooms a prominent role in shaping how students learn. Recent studies have shown evidence for the role that classrooms play in learning: A 2014 study, for example, found that young students spent more time off-task when classroom walls were highly decorated, while research on flexible classrooms shows that optimizing physical characteristics of classrooms such as light, color, and seating options can improve academic performance by as much as 16 percent.

The takeaway: Classroom walls should feel warm and lively but not overcrowded-keep 20 to 50 percent of the wall space clear, and fill the rest with student work, inspiring pictures, and learning aids.

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What you put on your classroom walls can affect your students' ability to learn.

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A classroom library is important for fostering the love of reading in students. Having a wide range of authors and types of books is key to creating an inclusive environment.

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I believe that a classroom library is the heartbeat of a teacher's environment. It is the window into an educator's own personality, and it reflects the importance of literacy in the classroom. I believe that every teacher -- no matter what subject he or she teaches -- should have one.

The Categories of Book Hunters

We should provide access to books in our classes with the same differentiated approach that we bring to any other lesson, assessment, or activity because there are, I believe, four categories of students who pursue books.

1. The Book Stalker

These are students who will seek out the book they want, regardless of locale. They get a mere whiff of a good book in the air, and they pursue it. They understand how to choose books and seek out advice when they need it.

2. The Library Literate

These are students who won't or can't go to a store, but who are comfortable enough to go to the local library, perhaps seeking advice from the friendly face on the other side of the desk.

3. The Lunchtime Lurker

These are the students who may be comfortable only at the school library. This may also be the only place where they feel safe. Perhaps they escape lunchtime trauma by diving into the dark corners of the library's stacks, surrounded by countless books and those "READ" posters.

4. The Frightened Bibliophobe

And then there are students who are so frightened of books, of literacy, and of choice, that they feel comfortable only in their classroom library, reaching for books they know exactly where to find -- and trusting you, who understands their fears and reading insecurities.

And it's up to us -- the classroom teachers -- to attract all these students, like moths to a flame. My stacks have every genre and every level: picture books, chapter books, fiction, and nonfiction.

Lure Them Into Your Classroom Library Through Any Means Necessary

My shelves are also peppered with realia from my own background, giving life and texture to the look of the library. A Shakespeare action figure with a removable quill sits between a full-text edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the manga version of As You Like It. My childhood Clash of the Titans lunchbox bookends the fantasy section, and a knight rides among the historical-fiction section. A figurehead of Captain Morgan that hung in my room all through high school glares down at a sign that reads, "Any who dare not use the proper means of checking out a book." They're all there. Each little tchotchke has a purpose. Each helps entrap students in the web of literacy that is my classroom library.

When interest tapers off, I start classroom-library scavenger hunts with questions on the board such as the following:

Which book has a map of Guilder inside its front cover? (The Princess Bride)

Which author has written books in each of the genres in our library? (Avi)

Which book on Mrs. Wolpert's fantasy shelf inspired the book Peter and the Starcatchers? (Peter Pan)

What is the title of the biography about that fantasy book's author? (J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys)

How many books in Mrs. Wolpert's library have been written by author Mike Lupica? (4)

I have stickers on every book with icons representing each genre to help categorize the books correctly. That way, even a struggling student can select and return books correctly. When I inject new books into the stacks, either through my own purchases or donations, I select volunteers to decide which stickers to place on them, thus turning a chore into a mini-lesson all in one fell swoop.

Ripley's Believe It or Not has a sticker stating that this book is for classroom reading only (too many kids want to read it after finishing their work), and Diary of a Wimpy Kid has a seven-day-limit sticker on its spine.

Make Your Classroom Library a Part of Your Lessons

Weave your classroom library into your lessons, and make sure that it is an interactive part of your classroom.

Have the students pull golden lines from the books for a homework assignment.

Have them design persuasive ads and write reviews inviting other students to read a book that they may have loved. It doesn't matter the genre -- any class can be uplifted with related book reviews hanging from the shelves. Imagine a science classroom with a review of A Wrinkle in Time hanging in front of a copy of the displayed book. Imagine a math classroom with a review of Flatland or Math Curse luring in those readers. Imagine a review of Beware, Princess Elizabeth or a Dear America book highlighting the choices students have made in a history classroom.

Have students recreate book covers once they are done reading a book. As students submit them, hang these book covers on the walls to become a part of the classroom's costume. These art pieces will overwhelm the room as proof of your students' content-area literacy.

One day, the books may fall apart with use, but remember that there's no better death for a book than its having been read too much and by too many.

What are some of the creative strategies and lessons that you use to motivate students and inspire independent reading?

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The Importance of a Classroom Library | Edutopia

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I believe that a classroom library is the heartbeat of a teacher's environment. It is the window into an educator's own personality, and it reflects the importance of literacy in the classroom. I believe that every teacher -- no matter what subject he or she teaches -- should have one.

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Using hand signals to communicate what a student needs or wishes to contribute to a conversation is a good way to have effective discussions and minimize distractions while still letting students be "heard".

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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A daily dedication is a way to get to know students on a more personal level and build community in the classroom. Students can choose anyone that provides them inspiration to dedicate their day to and write a few reasons as to why and share with the class.

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Students need periodic breaks to give them a moment to absorb information learned and prepare for more learning. One brain break is tossing a beach ball around the room asking questions for review or standing up and doing a 5 minute body stretch.

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Learn about the science and classroom applicability of these quick learning activities.

© Shutterstock.com/CWA Studios

Early in my teaching career, I was disturbed by a note left by the substitute teacher. She wrote that during the three days she was with my students, they were responsive during the first part of class, but that many of them became inattentive, distracted, and even disruptive after about 20 minutes of her instruction. When I asked the students what had happened, they were of one voice: "She didn't give us our brain breaks."

What Are Brain Breaks?

For students to learn at their highest potential, their brains need to send signals efficiently from the sensory receptors (what they hear, see, touch, read, imagine, and experience) to memory storage regions of the brain. The most detrimental disruptions to traffic along these information pathways are stress and overload.

Brain breaks are planned learning activity shifts that mobilize different networks of the brain. These shifts allow those regions that are blocked by stress or high-intensity work to revitalize. Brain breaks, by switching activity to different brain networks, allow the resting pathways to restore their calm focus and foster optimal mood, attention, and memory.

The Neuroscience of Brain Breaks

For new information to become memory, it must pass through an emotional filter called the amygdala and then reach the prefrontal cortex. When students' brains become anxious, highly confused, or overwhelmed, the activation of the amygdala surges until this filter becomes a stop sign. New learning no longer passes through to reach the prefrontal cortex and sustain memory. Even if students are not stressed by the pace or content of new learning, a point arises when the amygdala exceeds its capacity for efficient conduction of information through its networks into memory.

Brain breaks can be planned to restore the emotional state needed to return the amygdala from overdrive into the optimal state for successful information flow.

Brain Breaks Restore Brain Supplies

Neurotransmitters are brain chemicals that carry messages from one nerve cell to the next, across gaps between the cells called synapses. These message carriers are necessary to keep one's calm, focused attention and maintenance of a new memory. Neurotransmitters are in limited supply at each synapse and can deplete after as little as 10 minutes of continuing the same type of learning activity (attentive listening, practice drills, note-taking).

Brain breaks, by switching the type of mental activity, shift brain communication to networks with fresh supplies of neurotransmitters. This intermission allows the brain's chemicals to replenish within the resting network.

Timing

Brain breaks should take place before fatigue, boredom, distraction, and inattention set in. Depending on students' ages and focus development, brain break frequency will vary. As a general rule, concentrated study of 10 to 15 minutes for elementary school and 20 to 30 minutes for middle and high school students calls for a three- to five-minute break.

Brain Break Strategies

Brain breaks do not require disruption in the flow of learning. Simply stretching, moving to a different part of the room, or singing a song can revitalize the brain. Use your learning goals and students' responses to guide you in selecting the best type of brain break. You might decide to use the time to boost mood or motivation, as well as restore the brain's peak performance.

Mood

To restore the emotional state needed to bring the amygdala back from overdrive, help students build habits of emotional self-awareness and mindfulness. Prepare them for successful self-calming brain breaks by demonstrating and providing practice times as they build experience using mindful breathing or visualizations.

Read aloud from a relevant and engaging book.

Introduce physical activity such as jumping rope, singing a song with movements, or tossing a beach ball while students ask and answer questions to review the topic-these are all great dopamine boosters. They also increase the blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain.

Have students move in ways that they think a character in literature or person in history would at a designated event. Or move to imitate a biological, physical, or mathematical process.

Neuroscience has yielded information on activities that increase restorative neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Some of these activities, such as laughing, moving, listening to music, and interacting with peers, make great mood-boosting brain breaks:

Motivation

Tell a true anecdote about the author, historical persona, or scientist when they were the same age as your students. This will personalize the topic and boost interest and engagement.

Use dopamine boosts from personal connections and personal relevance by inviting students to share with partners something about how the learning relates to their lives or interests.

Especially when topics of study are necessary foundations but are not of high personal relevance to students, brain breaks can enhance their motivation to attend to a potentially tedious subject.

After just a few minutes, students' refreshed brains are ready to return to the next learning activity with a subdued amygdala and full supply of neurotransmitters. Both they and you will reap the benefits of this restoration.

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Using Brain Breaks to Restore Students' Focus

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Learn about the science and classroom applicability of these quick learning activities.

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Creating the classroom rules with students is an effective way for behavior management because it allows students to have a voice, work together as a class community and establish clear expectations for the rest of the year.

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The hustle and bustle of a new school year can get overwhelming. This is true because of things like curriculum planning, attending meetings, and organizing supplies, but also because you have to teach students the routines, procedures, and rules of the art room.

Because we have so many classes, the repetitive nature of this can grow tiresome. That's why, in my classroom, I believe in creating expectations with my students.

Creating expectations with students is an empowering activity to help build the community and culture of the art room.

Allowing students to take ownership over their environment shows them you value their thoughts. In the book, The Classroom of Choice: Giving Students What They Need and Getting What You Want, author Jonathan Erwin says, "One of the most effective and practical ways teachers can give students a say in the classroom is by allowing them to participate in developing the classroom rules or behavior guidelines."

From experience, I find teachers value leadership that takes their ideas and opinions into account when creating building norms or making changes in the school environment. So, you can see how this would work well with students, too!

Here are 3 benefits to creating classroom expectations with your students.

1. Your students will feel valued.

Many times in school, students are told what to do or how to think. Erwin supports this statement when he writes, "In academic classes, students are told how to behave, what to learn, when and how to learn it, and they are assessed in ways that may not take into account the diverse intelligences that exist in every student population."

Giving students a say will allow them to feel valued. As they contribute to the classroom expectations, they are more likely to follow them. They also will be able to use their critical thinking skills as they develop ideas to share with the class. It is beneficial to have student investment to promote a positive and safe learning environment.

2. Your students will understand the power of collaboration.

Getting students to collaborate on the first day is a great way to show how much you value students working together. As the teacher, you are modeling collaboration as well by getting students involved in developing classroom expectations. Instead of the usual "sit and get" structure, you are providing your students with a meaningful and interactive learning experience.

3. Your students will have a clear understanding of the expectations.

Having students directly involved in the creation of classroom expectations leaves less room for confusion. When students are a direct part of the process, they comprehend everything better. Students won't just be listening to you explain the expectations, they will be direct participants, brainstorming, discussing, and refining!

Let's talk about exactly how to generate expectations together.

Here are 3 ways to create shared classroom expectations.

1. Hold a Group Discussion

If this idea is new for you, having a basic classroom discussion is helpful and a comfortable way to start. This method also works especially well for younger elementary students who can't yet write well. Simply give prompts about rules you have had in the past and ask for additional suggestions.

For example, respect is a typical rule you will find in most classes. Bring up the topic of respect. Ask students, "Why it is important to be respectful in art class?," or, "What are ways for the class to be respectful in art class?" This questioning technique allows you to guide the discussion but allows for students to gain a deeper understanding and add input about expectations for the classroom.

2. Have Your Students Create Web Charts

To get even more collaborative, allow your students the opportunity to work and brainstorm together.

First, split your students into groups.
Each group will need a large piece of paper and a writing utensil.

Then, show your students how to create a web chart.
The center circle on the chart should be labeled something like, "Art Room Rules." Then, show them how to add lines going from the center circle to another circle. These secondary circles will house what they feel are good rules for the art room. For example, "Use supplies correctly." Let students get to work.

Finally, have students share out to the class.
After about 5-10 minutes of work time, have students share what their ideas with the class. Write common themes on the board and create a list of classroom expectations from what your students added to their web charts.

3. Conduct a Collaborative Sticky Note Activity

This activity is great for older students who can handle more movement around the room and more independent work.

1. Start with a brief discussion about the importance of expectations in the classroom. Write the main expectations your students discuss on the board.

2. Create a sticky note for each expectation. These might be things like Respect, Be Kind, Work Hard, etc... Place each sticky note on a different table in your classroom.

3. Give your students sticky notes (or even small pieces of scrap paper). Then, ask them to consider each expectation. For each expectation, have them write some specific ways students could follow the expectation in the classroom or why the expectation is important. Have students leave their thoughts at the corresponding tables.

Holding Students Accountable

No matter how you go about creating your classroom expectations, it's important to come up with some sort of visual or document for your students.
Here are two ways to do that.

1. Create a classroom visual.
Your classes will likely come up with similar expectations. Therefore, you can create a poster to lay everything out and display it in your room. You could also create a verbal pledge for your students or have them recite the expectations and acknowledge that they will follow them.

2. Create a contract.
If you want to save your wall space, have students sign a contract with the expectations they designed for the classroom. You can give each student an individual copy or have a copy for each class with a line for each student's name. You can post this in the room or refer to it when needed. If you are low on paper, try a verbal agreement.

Both of these methods allow you to have an easy reference if students forget the rules. If things are going awry, you can point to your poster or contract and conduct a mini-class targeted toward the expectations that need attention. It's powerful to be able to refer to the expectations and remind students they were involved in the creation of them.
What do you do on the first day of class when it comes to classroom expectations? What other benefits are there to creating shared classroom expectations with students?
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.

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Create Your Classroom Rules WITH Your Students for a Powerful Start to the Year

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Create Your Classroom Rules WITH Your Students for a Powerful Start to the Year Relationship Building % %

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ClassDojo is a great way to show students where they are at as a class with their behavior. I would display this for students to see and reward them with additional minutes of free choice time when they work together to get their points to a certain level.

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ClassDojo helps teachers, parents, and students build amazing classroom communities.

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A clip chart is a good tool to learn to manage student behavior. It takes a positive approach by starting off all students at the 'ready to learn' section and is fluid- it allows students to make corrections to their attitudes throughout the day and move into different sections.

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Students meet with a teacher that is not their own each day and check-in in the morning to see how they are feeling and check-out when the school day is over to see how their day went. This method is great for giving students that need it extra attention and time to help them have good days and prepare them for learning.

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Check-In / Check-Out: Providing a Daily Support System for Students

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Cultivating a culture that values and supports kindness is very important. This can be done in the classroom by teaching modeling, publicly acknowledging when a student is being kind, connecting to literature and practicing mindfulness.

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A Culture of Kindness in Early Childhood Classrooms

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Encouraging kindness in the early grades helps children develop behaviors that have value far beyond their school years.

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Connecting content directly with the lives of students and their cultures is critical to keeping students engaged and interested in learning. This can be done through 'think-pair-share' activities, pictures and class discussions.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching

To effectively collaborate and problem-solve, students need to develop a greater understanding of themselves and others.

Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo

As more students return to in-person school in the near future, it seems wise to invest our time and energy on strategies to increase student engagement that work both virtually and in person. Like all of us, students are most engaged when their work honors their experiences, connects to their interests, and has the potential to lead them to improvement of themselves, their lives, and issues that matter to them. Teachers can increase student engagement by re-envisioning their curricula in the following ways.

Identity and Criticality

Dr. Gholdy Muhammad advocates that teachers engage students by giving equal consideration to what she terms identity and criticality, in addition to building knowledge and teaching skills. Muhammad suggests that teachers promote identity work by asking themselves, "How does my teaching and learning help students learn about themselves and others?" Teachers can encourage criticality by asking themselves, "How does my teaching and learning help students to understand power, equity, antiracism, and anti-oppression?"

Curriculum that's culturally responsive and grounded in identity work is relevant and engaging, as it helps students better understand not only their own history and truth but those of others. Students can read and analyze class texts with the purpose of learning about other people's lives, joys, and struggles as a way to build empathy for those around the world who may be (or may just seem to be) very different than they are. Muhammad stresses that in order to interact, collaborate, and problem-solve peacefully with different kinds of people, students need to develop a greater understanding of themselves and others.

Criticality engages students because it involves deep and analytical thinking that enables them to recognize their own strengths as they learn where they are positioned in terms of power and privilege. Students can begin to develop criticality by reading, watching, and examining social justice issues from a variety of perspectives, and then process their thinking through written reflection and classroom discussions. This deeper understanding of societal norms and the resulting inequities fosters agency for the students as they begin to identify how they can effect change and disrupt unfair policies and systems.

Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors

Academic pursuits should offer students the opportunity to see their image reflected back in their coursework as they also peek through windows to see what's possible and envision sliding glass doors to walk through toward greater opportunities. As educator Rudine Sims Bishop writes, "Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books." Student engagement increases when school affirms their realities and the work they do connects to their lives.

Teachers and schools can begin by diversifying curricula to include texts that offer students the opportunity to see themselves in the books they read and glimpse worlds that depict people who look like them, who are accomplishing things they may never have thought possible. Teachers can offer opportunities for students to gain knowledge and practice skills while they engage in the practical application of real-world skills that matter. Then, students can metaphorically walk through doors on their own path by sharing their voice through slam poetry and podcasts, and their writing, art, and photography in blogs and contests.

Inquiry and Urgency

Students are even more likely to engage in culturally responsive classrooms when they consistently approach content in a spirit of curiosity and inquiry. Begin lessons by asking students questions like "What do you know?" "What do you think you know?" and "What do you want to know?" In a language arts class, an inquiry-based approach might ask students in a Think, Pair, Share to consider minor characters in a novel with questions like "Which characters would you identify as minor characters? What is their gender, role, socioeconomic status? Do they have any power? If so, over what or whom? What purpose do they serve in the novel? Why do you think the author didn't give them very much dialogue? What might this say about society at the time of the novel?

In other content areas, photographs can stimulate inquiry by motivating students to ask what they see, think, or wonder as they discuss observations of images across the globe that depict discrimination, economic instability, food insecurity, climate crises, public health issues, and other social injustices. Teachers can then recognize students' observations and raise this sense of urgency by asking students to think more broadly, with questions like "What are the consequences of...?" "What else does this connect to?" "Why is this significant?" and the ever-important "What can we do about it?" as students recognize themselves as change agents who can make an impact.

When teachers approach learning experiences with a willingness to learn and grow from what students bring to the conversation, we can introduce our knowledge and experience to elevate the conversation and promote student agency. In a classroom where students feel safe and valued, they can engage with confidence in all facets of inquiry driven by the understanding that their voices matter and it's in their power to improve their lives and the lives of others.

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Connecting Content to Students' Lives to Boost Engagement

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Culturally Responsive Teaching To effectively collaborate and problem-solve, students need to develop a greater understanding of themselves and others. Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo As more students return to in-person school in the near future, it seems wise to invest our time and energy on strategies to increase student engagement that work both virtually and in person.