Consider times in your classroom when your students are deeply involved in what they are doing - taking initiative, interacting with peers, enthusiastic and excited about learning. The room hums with positive energy and students are engaged! What do teachers do to make this happen?
Facilitating engagement in the classroom is vital for two reasons:

Brain research highlights how emotion affects motivation and learning, and

Studies show that high levels of engagement improve student achievement.

Because we are passionate about this subject, my collaborator, Michael Wilkinson, also an author and facilitator, and I are working on a new book about strategies for engaging learners. The book will be a compendium of strategies teachers use to facilitate engagement: in other words, ways teachers hook kids in, get them excited about learning, and generate interest in what's happening in the classroom. The intended audiences are early childhood and elementary teachers.

We’ve invited teachers around the country to share ideas with us and have included recent contributions here.

"Using Engagement Strategies to Facilitate Childrens' Learning and Success" appeared in the March 2006 edition of Young Children.
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