It is so important to encourage student to collaborate during a lesson! Not only so they have the opportunity to exchange ideas, but to take the focus off of the teacher, and back on the students. Partner collaboration will definitely up your student engagement if you feel that students are sitting idle or appear "bored"!
With this in mind, I always feel like it is important to change up my own delivery. When I find myself in a rut, or saying the same things over and over again to my class we can often sound like broken records and let's face it…the students can get bored!
I developed a "cheat sheet" that I can have right next to me while teaching so that I remind myself to use different ways for asking students to work with a partner, soliciting a response from them, responding to each other, and affirming their responses. If you would like a copy to use in your classroom, click on the picture below!
What phrases do you use that help students get involved? Please share! :)