Challenge and Engagement

Providing students with a challenging and engaging classroom is extremely important in classrooms today. Students are constantly engaging themselves at home with technology and this also needs to be reflected in the classroom.Using ICT in the classroom is becoming more and more popular and I think this is a very good way to challenge and engage students. There are limitless amounts of ways that students can become actively challenged and engaged in their work by providing them with resources that stimulate and amuse them.Like Colin Marsh points out, students are engaged when they are "conducting authentic and multi-disciplinary tasks, participating in interactive learning and learning through exploration" (Marsh, p. 105). These things can be achieved easily in today's classroom.

By using the internet, CD-ROMS, games, videos, DVD's, podcasts and more we can actively ensure the students are engaged with their work. It can also provide a challenge for the students as they constantly need to be involved in their learning.

By ensuring we provide a challenging and engaging classroom we are able to increase student’s participation levels and enthusiasm. This also relates to the idea of students learning on their own accord rather than having a teacher driven classroom. I strongly believe that the teacher’s role is to be facilitator.