Student engagement is not an easy thing to do in this day and age.
Teachers are facing new and old problems alike in trying to turn a passive classroom into a place of active learning.
Whether it is the use of cell phones and other devices in class, or just the eternal problem of bored students talking amongst themselves and acting out, something is always there to distract students.
And when students are indeed paying attention, the reality is that there are different degrees of attention. That is why we have phrases like "barely paying attention" and "paying close attention". Teachers should not make the mistake of confusing a class that is merely not distracted with a class that is paying significant attention.
For this reason, using tools like visual timers for learning can be an excellent way to create excitement and urgency around classroom activities and games.
Pairing these countdown timers, such as those made by Time Timer, with fun challenges for collaborative learning can be an easy way to quickly boost engagement in your students.
The Usefulness of Interactive Timers in Classroom Settings
Looking back on your own education, was it not the case that looking up at an analog or digital clock of numbers could sometimes be a burden?
During things like tests and time-sensitive activities, your mind busily immersed in, say, a geography quiz, you may have looked up at the clock and forget just what time it began, exactly.
And so, you would suddenly feel an added pressure, not knowing how much time exactly you have left.
For teachers looking to avoid this added time pressure, using a visual timer can be an easy way to give students a quick look at just how much time is left for an activity.
One example of this is the Time Timer Original 12" is large enough for students to see, even from all the way in the back of the class.
Game Timers
An easy way to get immediate interest from students, assuming that they are somewhat receptive to the teacher, is to implement learning-based games in the classroom.
To add a competitive edge and raise the stakes of the game, setting a timer to have the students "win" with a certain amount of time can be an easy way to motivate students
Of course, the games just depend on what the subject of the class is.
Example of a Classroom Game with a Visual Timer
For instance, consider a math class.
The game involves dividing the class into groups that will work together to solve math problems.
A teacher will set a timer for three minutes for multiple groups in the class to each come up with three math problems (e.g., long division—really, whatever is relevant to the class lesson) for another group to solve.
The teacher should definitely set limits here, such as not using numbers with more than five digits for long division. Otherwise, the students would simply devise "impossible" questions.
When that three minutes is up, each group trades their set of problems for another group's.
The timer is once again set, this time for anywhere between five and ten minutes. (It may be better to do ten minutes, as students will likely be working as hard as they can to make difficult problems).
The first group to correctly answer all three problems wins.
That was just one example of how a visual timer can be used for a classroom game. However, there are certainly many other uses for visual timers in the setting.
Activity Timers for Engaging Learning with Challenges
Even if you are not going to have the students play a game, adding a timer to a learning activity can raise the stakes a bit. It can readily define for students the expectations for an activity, and add urgency to the task.
A Time Timer Dry Erase Board can also be useful for outlining those expectations.
Admittedly, the line between an activity and a game in the classroom can sometimes seem blurry. To mark the difference a bit here,in a game there tends to be a focus on competition, whether against other people or just in trying to "beat the clock".
So, the above section's game of students designing and assigning math problems for other students is distinct from the teacher simply handing each individual student a set of prewritten problems. The latter is more of an activity, even if the first student to get all the problems right is rewarded with a piece of candy.
So a classroom activity does not need to have a competitive element to it. Or, necessarily, the gloss of "fun" and entertainment that games usually have. Usually, an activity treats the action as an end in itself, whereas in a game you do something to win or have fun.
Worth noting here is that there is a difference between being entertaining and being engaging. As such, something not being entertaining does not necessarily mean that it is boring.
Time Timer: Making a More-Engaging Classroom Experience
Interested in any of our products? Reach out to us today to find the timer that can help boost engagement in the classroom setting!
