Unless you intentionally plan for and require students to actively participate with the topic you are teaching, you have no way of knowing what students are learning until it is often too late to repair misunderstandings.The number one reason students drop out of school is boredom.
Are my students engaged and on-task?
On this page you will find a variety of strategies and tools to assist in ensuring active engagement in your classroom.
This handbook contains OPS approved practices aligned to the Academic Action Plan.
Cognia's Effective Learning Environments Observation Tool (ELEOT) is used to identify observable evidence of classroom environments that are conducive to learning. This instrument focuses on learners to ensure that learners are engaging acting, reacting, and benefiting from various contexts or environments that should be evident in all effective learning settings.
"Deep cognitive engagement does not emerge from simply being talked at. Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention. Through restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, a
nd with each other (10)."
"When teachers carefully structure the delivery of their content so as to ensure active participation and cognitive engagement by every learner, they help ensure that the learning will be lasting and meaningful. And they ensure that not one student will be abandoned along the way (22)."
Himmele, P. and Himmele, W. (2011).Total participation techniques: Making every student an active learner. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
See the document below for a variety of engagement techniques.
Teaching in the block allows the teacher the freedom to fully practice their craft. . As Robert Marzano posits effective teaching is part art and part science, and he states, "In short, research will never be able to identify instructional strategies that work with every student in every class. The best research can do is tell us which strategies have a good chance (i.e., high probability) of working well with students [Science] .Individual classroom teachers must determine which strategies to employ with the right students at the right time. In effect, a good part of effective teaching is an art."
Marzano, Robert (2007). The art and science of teaching : a comprehensive framework for effective instruction, Alexandria Virginia: ASCD.
Guided Instruction by 
Checking for Understanding by 
Differentiated Instructional Strategies for the Block Schedule by 
Differentiated Instructional Strategies by 
Visible Learning for Teachers by 
Visible Learning for Social Studies, Grades K-12 by 
Total Participation Techniques by 
Tools for Teaching in the Block by 
Tools for Teaching in the Block by 
The Art and Science of Teaching by Omaha Public Schools does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, age, genetic information, citizenship status, or economic status in its programs, activities and employment and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The following individual has been designated to address inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies: Superintendent of Schools, 3215 Cuming Street, Omaha, NE 68131 (531-299-9822).
Las Escuelas Públicas de Omaha no discriminan basados en la raza, color, origen nacional, religión, sexo, estado civil, orientación sexual, discapacidad , edad, información genética, estado de ciudadanía, o estado económico, en sus programas, actividades y empleo, y provee acceso equitativo a los “Boy Scouts” y a otros grupos juveniles designados. La siguiente persona ha sido designada para atender estas inquietudes referentes a las pólizas de no discriminación: El Superintendente de las Escuelas, 3215 Cuming Street, Omaha, NE 68131 (531-299-9822).
