Increase Student Participation in Classes: Tips to Follow

No effective teaching and learning can be carried out without students being participatory in the classes. Only teachers sharing knowledge and explaining won’t allow students to understand, relate what is being taught, and receive enough and quality education. Also, teachers won’t be able to give the best of their teaching skills by having learners as only mere listeners in the classroom.

And therefore, the participation of students in the classroom plays a significant role in the teaching and learning process. But many students lack student participation making classes less effective. Let us discuss some of the benefits of students’ participation and tips to enhance this in the classes.

Benefits of student participation in the classroom

Student participation plays an important role in imparting and receiving a quality education in the classroom. Let us read some of its benefits that will surely encourage students to become more participatory in learning.

• Makes classes more interesting.
• help teachers to analyze students’ understanding.
• Willing to participate makes students more concentrated and focused in classes.
• Better giving and receiving feedback among students and teachers.
• Better doubt resolution.
• Help students to understand better, and achieve academic excellence.

Tips for students to participate more in classes

1. Get your doubts cleared

 Sometimes, students believe that participation means only giving the right answers in classroom discussions. But this is a wrong assumption. Class participation is not limited to speaking right. Also, not every time do we have the right knowledge to answer to.

Getting your doubts cleared, to understand more, for relating and involving in the classroom activities also comes under participation. And hence all students must focus on getting their doubts cleared from the teachers. By proper doubt resolution, comes the proper understanding that directly increases the participation of students in the classroom.

 2. Don’t allow speaking fear to overpower your skills

Being shy, introverted, and conservative can stop you from freely speaking up, sharing your thoughts, opinions, and knowledge in the class. Also, some students, even having the right knowledge, have an inner speaking fear which obstructs their participation in the classes. They feel if they speak something incorrect or less relatable, they might be judged or criticized.

But all students must understand that a classroom is a secure place where students can speak freely without these fears. Think positively, build on your confidence, and don’t allow your fears to overpower or dominate your skills. And take teachers’ opinions and suggestions constructively only.

 3. Be regular to the classes

 The academic lessons are linked with one another. And the topics of a lesson are also connected. This means what students learn in a particular class will be linked to what will be taught in the next class. When students stay irregular to the classes, they are not able to understand well.

When they miss classes regularly, they find difficulty in relating to the further lessons too, furthermore reducing their class participation. To overcome this problem, all students must stay regular to the class. With regularity, their understanding and doubt clearing all will be improved.

What can teachers do?

1. Have participatory activities

 The monotonous teaching practice where a teacher only teaches and explains, whereas students sit as mere listeners without being allowed to speak and interact affects their participation in the class. By using LMS portals, teachers must manage to conduct participatory activities such as group discussions, project making, extracurricular activities, recitations, etc. This will make students collaborate, speak up and participate more.

 2. Encourage students

Many students are quite shy and reserved. And even if they have knowledge and views to share, they prefer to stay quiet. To make your classes more participatory, all teachers must encourage students to speak up and share. Make them believe and have faith in you. Make students have trust that they won’t be judged, criticized, or interrupted. Using motivational quotes for students, communicating with every student, building positivity in the classroom, being friendly and kind with them can help teachers in this regard.

3. Use technology to teach

Lack of understanding is also one of the reasons behind students participating less in the classes. Sometimes textbooks and guides don’t serve this purpose. And in this regard, using technology to teach will surely help. Students are very much attracted to technology and visualization. When teachers teach with the help of audiovisual aids, students tend to understand better. Also, they feel more interested in learning which makes them active participants in the class too.

 Conclusion

Only teachers speaking and explaining the lessons won’t serve the purpose of developing an effective learning environment for the students. By reading the above-mentioned information we can make out the importance of students participating in the classes for receiving a good education. We also discussed some tips which both learners and educators can follow to enhance student participation in the classroom.