Resources for Promoting Engagement

Engagement is a tricky word. Defining it with your team is worth the time, but not what I'm aiming to do comprehensively here (that said, my favorite framework is thinking about engagement as existing along three dimensions: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral).

Generally speaking, when teachers and coaches talk about strategies for promoting engagement, I find it usually means we're wanting kids to have a baseline of on-task behavior, and that we can advance into meaningful learning, meaning-making, maintaining attention and/or interest, joy, and collaborative learning in a social context.

If you're looking for resources to dust off or add to your engagement strategies toolkit,

here are my favorite resources for instructional strategies that build thinking, collaboration, discussion, movement, and sense-making while strengthening academic community:

1. EL Education's Big PDF of Classroom Routines

It's not called that, but at some point that's what I started calling it. "You know, the big PDF from EL Education with the strategies?"

It's published to align with the EL Education school model and ELA curriculum, but it's got a little of everything and is widely applicable in most settings and grade levels.

Check it out HERE. Skim the Table of Contents to find what you need.

2. Project Zero's Thinking Routines

These strategies focus on building cognitive routines, thinking routines, thinking protocols -- whatever you want to call them. Each protocol includes a step-by-step facilitation guide with helpful tips, downloadable PDFs, and several are translated into Spanish.

Check them out HERE.

You can also learn more about how to use thinking routines from the books, Making Thinking Visible, and The Power of Making Thinking Visible.

Bonus: Dr. Catlin Tucker has shared these great Google Slides of many of Project Zero's thinking routines that can be copied and assigned to students.

Bonus bonus: I previously shared ideas on using thinking routines in coaching. So meta.

3. Kagan Strategies

Their graphics and website remind us that this resource is an oldie... but goodie. If you're talking about cooperative learning strategies, it's hard not to reference this text. While some materials and scanned copies are circulating the interwebs, the resources are copyrighted, so I don't have an authorized online free resource to share of all of the strategies here (would love to hear from you if you know of one).

But you can buy the book HERE or preview five strategies HERE.

4. Lead4Ward's Instructional Strategies Playlist

A clickable list of strategies that you can explore to access details for implementation, and neatly organized into five categories: movement and discourse, rehearsal and practice, extended thinking, learning from mistakes, and evidence of learning.

Access it HERE.

5. Zwiers' Academic Conversations Tools

These tools & strategies specifically build language routines to support academic conversations. The math language routines (MLRs) used in several math programs come from Zwiers' work.

Explore the tools HERE.

6. Specific Resources from Adopted HQIMs

When schools adopt High Quality Instructional Materials, it's worth making use of them. For one, they're the routines that are found in the lessons and support your curricular programs, and not something that has to be shoehorned in. And also, the resources are already made, usually in separate facilitation guides in the course overview or appendix of the teacher's edition.

And when teachers are in the thick of the day-to-day lesson plans, it can be easy to miss the detailed facilitator guides or tips that are usually referenced but not detailed in each lesson plan. So engage teachers in using them.

For example, I've worked with teachers who have used programs based on Illustrative Math or EngageNY (from publishers like Open Up 6-8 Math, Amplify Desmos, Imagine Learning, Kendall Hunt, or Eureka Math). Each publisher has guides or even videos of the instructional strategies that can support discussion, collaboration, or engagement in the curriculum. And almost every time I've brought these guides into professional development sessions, someone asks me to remind them where they're found in the materials.

6. The ELL Teacher's Toolbox

With the active learning of our multilingual learners in mind, this practical book is full of ideas for engaging ELLs in the learning of the lesson.

Get the original book HERE, or the new 2.0 version HERE (haven't read the 2.0 version, but I'm sure it's just as good).

Put The Bots to Work

At the time of this writing, the computers still work for us and not the other way around (yet). Until they become our overlords, here's a prompt you can copy and paste into your favorite generative AI tool to help you generate guides on engagement strategies. I like Claude or ChatGPT.

You are an experienced instructional coach supporting teachers in increasing student engagement. Ask me any clarifying questions you need first—such as grade level, content area, specific student needs, or the engagement goal—before creating resources.

Once you have the necessary information, provide 5–7 research-based engagement strategies that are practical and effective in the given context. For each strategy, include:

- A brief description of how it works

- A specific example of how a teacher might use it in a lesson

- A reflection or planning question a coach could use when introducing this to a teacher

Then, create a one-page summary (in teacher-friendly language) that a coach could paste into a Google Slide or PDF handout to share during PD or coaching conversations.

Want more resources to support your growth and development as an instructional coach at a cost educators can afford? Join The Coaches' Circle. You'll get a space where you can get questions answered in a live Q&A, a monthly resource, and an accompanying webinar, like the one below.

In this guide and accompanying webinar, I provide an extensive checklist that coaches, managers, or teams can use to make decisions or clarify grey areas around how instructional coaches support school goals.

Want more weekly coaching insights? Subscribe to Problem of Practice for practical strategies and reflections delivered to your inbox.