During this presentation, I will share practical strategies teachers can use to increase student participation, deepen student learning, and strengthen engagement in their classrooms. These strategies are drawn from my doctoral research with expert middle school mathematics teachers working with students aged 10 to 15. Although developed in mathematics contexts, the approaches are broadly applicable across subject areas because they focus on pedagogical principles rather than discipline-specific content.

I will discuss how effective teachers intentionally build a positive and productive classroom learning environment; how they shape students’ mindsets; how they cultivate collaborative learning norms; and how they normalize mistakes as part of daily practice. I will also describe how teachers “de-face” the classroom to shift focus from the teacher to student thinking, and how they position themselves as facilitators of learning rather than as the traditional “sage on the stage.”