We talk a lot about engagement here at Slides with Friends. And with good reason!
When students are engaged in the learning process, they are more likely to pay attention, focus, and think critically.
But, and this is the tricky question, how do we actually inspire students to engage?
There are tried and true engagement activities, classroom games, and even tools for measuring engagement.
Another way to help with student engagement is through the use of inspirational quotes. When used correctly, these quotes can serve as great talking points, short lessons, and inspiration for students.
Bonus: Check out our favorites in our Classroom Quotes slide deck.
While inspirational quotes are great, using them can take a little bit of creativity. Sure, you can throw them on a wall and hope the message connects, but to really get the most out of these quotes takes a little planning.
Thankfully, we’ve done a lot of that planning for you! Here are some of our favorite ways to use inspirational quotes to boost student engagement.
A key reason for using inspirational quotes is to get students thinking about how it can be applied to their lives. Drive the message home by using a quote of the week as a writing prompt.
Starting out a class with a quote on student engagement and having students write about why the quote resonates (or doesn’t!) with them is a great way to get everyone thinking. And hopefully, thinking about a quote on engagement will inspire engagement.
Teachers can give themselves a break by using student engagement quotes to act as discussion starters or group discussions.
Break students up into groups or pairs and present the class with a quote. Ask the students to take 5 to 10 minutes to discuss what they thought the writer meant by the quote. If the quote is from someone well-known, students can also discuss how the concepts of the quote could be seen in the person’s life. End each discussion by having students discuss how they could apply the quote to their lives.
Debate is such an amazing tool to teach student’s critical thinking. And what better, low-stakes way to debate than over a quote on student engagement?
Take Babe Ruth’s quote on not letting the fear of striking out stop you from trying. Is that always the case? Did that work for all the people who purchased NFT’s?
These are the hard-hitting questions students can debate when it comes to quotes about learning and engagement.
We’ve all seen the posters of a cat dangling off a rope with the words “Hang in There” written across the bottom.
Let your students express themselves artistically by giving them an inspirational quote and letting them create their own posters. At the end, hopefully they’ll have learned something and you’ll have new classroom décor!
Here are some of the most inspirational quotes to get students engaged and excited about learning.
"The more you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
- Dr. Seuss
"Procrastination makes easy things hard and hard things harder."
- Mason Cooley
“Every child can learn. Just not on the same day or in the same way.”
- George Evans
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”
- Phil Collins
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”
- John F. Kennedy
“One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.”
- Frank Herbert
“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”
- Anthony J. D’Angelo
“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”
- E. M. Forster
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
- Henry Ford
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
- Richard Feynman
“Being a student is easy. Learning requires actual work.”
- William Crawford
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”
- Harry S. Truman
“A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life.”
- Chinese Proverb
“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.”
- Mortimer Adler
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
- Malcolm X
“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”
- G.K. Chesterton
“It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort.”
- Jillian Michaels
“The best way to gain self-confidence is to do what you are afraid to do.”
- Swati Sharma
“A little progress each day adds up to big results.”
- Satya Nani
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
- Mark Twain
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
- Zig Ziglar
"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
- John Wooden
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."
- Albert Einstein
"None of us is as smart as all of us."
- Ken Blanchard
