How to Boost Student Engagement and Motivation with ChatterHigh

Did you know that engaged students are hopeful students? According to research by Gallup, not only are engaged students more likely to feel confident in their academic performance but “they are 4.5 times more likely to be hopeful about the future than their actively disengaged peers.” 

At ChatterHigh, we’re all about helping students feel hopeful for the future. In fact, our student-centric platform is proven to help foster hope in students and prepare them for their future.

What makes ChatterHigh so effective? It’s the winning combination of gamification, competition, and relevance. From prizes to personalized reports, ChatterHigh employs a variety of tactics to engage and motivate students. Read on to learn how you can make the most of ChatterHigh’s strategies for student engagement.

TL;DR

To help foster hope in students, ChatterHigh employs these student engagement strategies:

1. Gamification. Points + prizes = increased student engagement.
2. Competition. Make the most of your students’ competitive spirit by participating in national and regional competitions or by creating your own class vs class challenges!
3. Relevance. Students discover real-world resources so they can be equipped and excited for their personalized professional paths.

How will you use ChatterHigh to increase student engagement and motivation in your class?

1. Gamification

Gamification is all about adopting “game-style mechanics” in “non-game contexts” to motivate participation in an activity. Here at ChatterHigh, our entire platform is built around gamification. Whether students are discovering new career pathways in our Daily Quiz or expanding their knowledge of financial literacy, mental health resources, and more in our Mindful Modules, students have an engaging and gamified learning experience. Here’s how it works. 

Through the use of interactive quizzes, points, and prizes, gamification transforms learning into play, which motivates students. How do we know? They told us! In fact, this fall we surveyed over 140 students on their experience with our Let’s Talk Careers competition (more on that soon). 56% of respondents said that prizes were what motivated them the most in the competition, while just over 10% said making charitable donations was their main motivating factor. However, prizes and donations aren’t the only reasons competitions are so effective at improving student engagement.

2. Competition

Research shows that competition has the potential to increase attention, making it a great way to boost student engagement and motivation. That’s why we host various competitions on our platform throughout the school year. Take our semi-annual Let’s Talk Careers competition for example. In this competition, students compete for individual student bursaries and school-wide prizes by answering questions in our Daily Quiz.  

As we mentioned earlier, many students are motivated by prizes and philanthropy. However, you might be surprised to learn that bragging rights and school pride also go a long way in motivating students. Of those same 140+ students we surveyed this fall, a quarter of them said they found earning recognition for their school to be the most motivating factor of the competition. Not only that but 58% of students surveyed agreed that the competitive component motivated them to complete the Daily Quiz and explore career possibilities.

Curious what the students themselves have to say about Let’s Talk Careers? Then watch this video to hear a couple of students explain how the competition motivates them. (To hear from the students, begin the video at 9:20.) To hear from students and teachers alike, check out our blog post “Why Students, Teachers and Partners Participate in the Let’s Talk Careers Competition.”

Challenges

Looking for a way to cultivate some healthy competition but there are no current competitions at your school? No problem! With the “Challenges” feature on ChatterHigh, you can create a 10- or 20-day mini-competition between classes in seconds. Whether you want your own classes to face off or one of your classes to compete against another teacher’s class, setting up a challenge is easy. You can even compete against a class at another school! Check out the video to learn how.

Pro Tip: To catalyze your students’ competitive spirit without a competition or challenge, try showing your class's donation leaderboard.

Simply select “View My Classes” from your dashboard, click on “View Class Details” and then select “Student Progress.”

The far-right column will show you how much each student has donated.

3. Relevance

Engagement is not about baiting a hook. It’s about helping students find their spark and make their own fire.

Larry Ferlazzo, ASCD

According to research, relevance plays a key role in student engagement. If students can see how completing an activity will help them meet a short-term or long-term goal, they are much more likely to engage on a deeper level. 

At ChatterHigh, we’re all for finding fun and easy ways to motivate students. However, we also want to foster intrinsic motivation in students: we want to help them find their spark, make their own fire, and engage in learning on a deeper level. That’s why our platform is designed to help students set and achieve post-secondary goals. By answering Daily Quiz questions, students can discover the vast variety of post-secondary and career options open to them and begin to brainstorm their goals. By receiving questions specific to their geographic region, grade, and interests, students can hone in on the opportunities that most interest them. By unlocking personalized reports, students can map out their post-secondary path. So whether their goals are set or still a little foggy, students can be motivated by information that is personally relevant to them.  

>>Click here to learn more about how ChatterHigh offers personalized career exploration<<

Conclusion

Student engagement and motivation strategies form the backbone of ChatterHigh. Whether it’s catalyzing your students’ competitive spirit through a competition or challenge, or inspiring intrinsic motivation through connecting students to relevant material, ChatterHigh’s student-centric design has the ingredients you need to ignite student engagement. If engaged students are 4.5 times more likely to be hopeful about the future, then we can’t wait.

To begin boosting student engagement in your classroom, create your free account today. Or book a demo to learn more.