Hey what’s going on guys, talking today about keeping students engaged during their peers’ presentations. 

This is a dilemma I have faced on numerous occasions during my teaching career, and have found four different strategies that call all be effective depending on your class and what works best for them. 

The first strategy, and the one that I tend to use most often, is to have my students fill out a peer review/peer feedback rubric. This rubric usually includes ask students to identify three things that they learned, three things that their peer did well, two things that their peer could improve on, and a rating out of ten. In order to promote student engagement with this I usually have this as a part of their grade for their project as a whole. 


The second strategy that I like to use is to have the audience ask questions on the presentation after the presenter has finished their presentation. For each presentation I usually require at least three audience questions, and for the day I require each student to ask at least one question. I really like this strategy because it encourages students to think critically about the content of the presentation. 


The third strategy is to randomly call on students to share what they learned out loud, and/or give feedback to the presenter. I have could be done in addition to, or separately from the first strategy, and it is also a great strategy in getting students to think critically about the presentation. 


The fourth and last strategy is to ask the presenter to put together a two question mini-quiz that students will be graded on. I usually ask students to make the questions easy enough where if the audience was paying attention, they would have found the answer directly in the presentation, but difficult enough where they can’t guess or answer the question with prior knowledge. While this may not employ critical thinking, it is still a great tool for ensuring that students are engaged during presentations. 


Hope that helps and that there is something that you can take with you and apply to your classroom. As always take what you can use and make it your own, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to reach out!