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As a future teacher myself I have heard what is best is to ensure that all students are involved and have things going on for example some students might become agitated waiting to use some of the materials making the lesson kind of pointless so stations are a big help. 

Hi Alexandra,
 
I think you asked a fantastic question. I will also be graduating as an elementary teacher and also do not have much experience teaching science. One thing I have learned in classes about keeping students engaged is that you have to make personal connections and get to know the interests of your students. If you can find lessons and activities that your students have interest in, you’ll have a much easier time keeping them engaged. While having every activity relate to student interest is not always possible, you’ll also have success keeping students engaged if they can see you have genuine excitement for the subject matter. Another way to keep student engagement is to relate the lesson to their personal lives. If students are able to relate a lesson to their daily life, the learning will be more meaningful and you will have better success keeping students engaged. Hope some of these tips help!

As a pre-service teacher, I find that the students are most engaged when the activities are hands-on.  But it is essential that the meaning of the hands-on models are clearly connected to the subject matter, otherwise they are just playing.

Alexandra,

Engagement is key in any classroom, if students can interact with what is going on their learning will be enhanced greatly. As a preservice teacher and what I have seen my field experience teachers do and say repeatedly is to make sure the students understand the meaning behind why they are learning a specific topic. Most of the time if students know why they are learning something, they will be more interested in the topic. If students are doing a hands-on activity more than likely they will already be engaged with what it is they are doing because they actually get to do something rather than just sit there. Another tip I would say is to be very interactive with your students, ask them questions and let them ask you questions back. Students will almost always remember material from class discussions instead of listening to a teacher talk the whole class. Meaning and pure interactions are the two best tips I can give. What other tips have you learned to keep students engaged since entering the field? What is the best way to grab the classes attention when they are all over the place that you have learned works well?

Luke