Active engagement in the classroom good or no?

Oh how I love using show me!!! I have been using show me techniques since day one and knowing that's what it was...I was going more for engagement with my kids! :-)  I use thumps up and thumps down/hand signals as well as using writing techniques on their desks with simple answers since they hall have write on desks and we can work on OT, writing words, spelling all at once! 
The hardest one for me and I constantly am having to remind myself is to wait...so they can process the question and create an answer.  I have gone to actually breathing and taking a drink of water to give them time.  It seems to help. 

We also use perform a great deal during speech and social skills.  We do a lot of acting out social situations so that they can see and actually partake in the situation and understand better what is right and what is wrong so that they will hopefully recall when they are in that situation later on!

A great deal of impromptu occurs in room 119 and I believe it is some of the healthiest, best times we have and it helps develop these kids into better students and friends as they continuously will bring something up later that was reviewed or stated in these impromptu engagements that hit home to them..it's refreshing and re instills to me that we are doing the right thing in the moment!  I love to engage my students and try every effort to do so on a daily basis!