CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

4 Tested Techniques to Engage Students

Best Practices from the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning

M
any factors can in uence how engaged students are in the classroom
—how in-class discussions ow and are managed, an instructor’s
teaching style, or the content of the day’s chosen course materials.

But importantly, and perhaps counterintuitively, instructors do not need to

generate high levels of energy throughout the entire class discussion to maintain
student engagement. Engagement can also be achieved during periods of
thoughtful intensity and even silence, when moments of re ection may lead to
deeper learning than that achieved in the context of heated debates.

Other ideas to heighten student engagement include the use of role play, votes and
polls, buzz groups, and class guests. Let’s explore these four activities in more
detail.

Technique #1: Experience Through Role Play

Role play places students in character to approximate a rst-hand experience,
though the instructor may decide to play one of the roles during the exchange. Role
play can be built into a teaching plan or pursued spontaneously in the class
discussion.

Examples of role play include the following:

 Major productions. Roles are preassigned, and the entire class participates—as
with negotiations or simulations. Objectives may include providing a capstone
to a course module and generating experiential learning.
Brief planned events. Students play case protagonists. The setup is given at the
beginning of class or on your LMS, and the role play is staged either with the
entire class listening or in breakout groups. Objectives may include raising
student engagement, more deeply grounding the case discussion, and creating
experiential learning.
Spontaneous role play. A student comment acts as the trigger—for example, “I
would have approached it di erently,” or “I don’t see how to convince her to do
that.” Objectives may include raising student engagement, personalizing the
discussion, and allowing students to explore alternatives more organically.

Three Stages of Role Play

An e ective role play typically requires a three-step process: setup, action, and
debrief.

Setup. Consider which student(s) to pick for the role play. Provide clear
instructions for scope and timing of the role play.
Action. Listen for content and tone.
Debrief. Ask role play participants questions about the experience, such as,
“How did that feel?” “Why did you say/do XYZ?” Students observing the role
play can be asked: “How realistic was the interaction?” “What was surprising?”
“What would you have done di erently?” “Why are these conversations so
hard?

“Taking a few minutes for students to talk among themselves or

practice a managerial scenario allows all students to participate
and engage with class content.”
Technique #2: Take a Vote
In-class votes (by hand or with a voting tool) and pre-class electronic surveys can be
used to poll the entire section on a particular question.

Votes are typically used in conjunction with another question type, whether cold
call, warm call, or volunteer.

The results of a vote—for example, deciding to keep or sell, giving a company or

individual a letter grade, or selecting among strategic options—can help identify
the distribution of opinions within the class and determine which students to call
on.

Vote taking accomplishes three things in the classroom:

1. It forces students to speak up about where they stand. A vote is a public

commitment.
2. It gives the instructor license to then call on students to explain why they voted
the way they voted.
3. It gives the instructor a sense of how the class is weighted among two or three
di erent points of view—and whether an underrepresented viewpoint may
need some support.

Technique #3: Engage in Buzz Groups

Taking a few minutes for students to talk among themselves or practice a
managerial scenario in small groups allows all students to participate and engage
with class content.
Buzz Group Best Practices
Tell students how many students should be in a group, how long they will have
in their group, and how you will signal the end of group discussion.
Give students space to talk freely; don’t linger by any one group.
Consider allowing brief report-outs from one or more groups a erward.

Buzz groups can be particularly e ective in the executive education classroom as

participants can sometimes be reluctant to speak out in class discussions. Buzz
groups enable students to engage with content and with each other to help foster
relationships and energize subsequent class discussions.

“Engagement can be achieved during periods of thoughtful

intensity and even silence, when moments of re ection may
lead to deeper learning than that achieved in the context of
heated debates.”

Technique #4: Bring in Class Guests

Carefully selected, well-prepared guests provide depth and authenticity to student
learning and allow students to contextualize leadership behaviors. Class guests also
can bene t from insights that emerge from the class discussion.

There are three ways to involve class guests:

Case update and guest re ections on class discussion

Q&A with case protagonist
Guest as a “live case”
 Preparation Is Key
1. Be clear on the pedagogical purpose of the visit—for example, invite guests and
students to wrestle with a set of questions together for shared learning.
2. Set guests’ expectations of how much time they will have for their presentation
and Q&A with students.
3. Coach guests on likely questions and previous relevant discussions to provide
context on student learning and engagement.
4. If possible, maximize the scope of guests’ visits to campus (for example, include
lunches and student club meetings, and video record class discussions or
comments for future class use).

Student engagement is one of the pillars of e ective business learning. Yet ensuring
a successful classroom experience, with students tuned in and actively thinking
and participating, can be a delicate dance for many professors, old and new, to
master.

These tried-and-true approaches—role plays, votes and polls, buzz groups, and
class guests—can help bring even the most apprehensive students into the
conversation to further student learning, increase retention, and improve critical
thinking skills.

This article is adapted, with permission, from the Engagement section of the Christensen Center
for Teaching and Learning’s website.

Posted July 10, 2019

The C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning was established in 2004 to promote
and support teaching excellence and innovation within Harvard Business School. It also provides
leadership and expertise about case method teaching and participant-centered learning for
instructors at other institutions in the United States and abroad.
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