To engage a student or students may take on a different meaning or focus depending on the context of one's goals, course preparation, or delivery process.   For some, the goal may be to understand early on in the course preparation phase what fundamentally motivates students, whether intrinsicly or extrinsicly, to acquire new knowledge and skill.   For others, the focus may be relative to a specific lesson or activity during which capturing and retaining student attention "in the moment" is the most immediate concern. Despite these foci being at two different points in the course design and delivery process – whether in the context of developing an understanding of the individual's frame of reference and learning preferences or within the context of the actual teaching and learning activities, themselves – there are some key factors to successfully engaging students. These include:

• Implementing a mix of content and activity to present information in a variety of ways (i.e., visual, textual, audial, tactile, kinesthetic)
• Having students work on activities that allow them to use higher order thinking skills (e.g.,  analyzing, evaluating, and creating)
• Making the process relevant to the students' own life experiences 
• Providng opportunities for students to build on existing knowledge in order to construct new connections and meaning
• Incorporating activities that allow students to reflect and summarize on what they have learned
• Creating an environment in which students share ideas and discoveries with one another

Here are just a few additional resources for engaging students in the teaching and learning process: