Student Engagement

As presented by John AntonettiNovember 17, 2012

Carroll Knicely Center, Bowling Green, KYWorking on the Work by Dr. Phillip Schlechty

Lesson Design

Experimentation

Analysis

Reflection

Academic Engagement(High Yield Instructional

Strategies)

Intellectual Engagement

(Big Idea Thinking)

Egocentric Engagement

(8 Engaging Qualities of Work)

Academic Engagement• Identifying Similarities and Differences– breaking a concept into similar and dissimilar

characteristics provides opportunity to understand and solve challenging problems by analyzing them in a simple way

• Summarizing and Note-taking– analyzing information to find what is essential

and put it into one’s own words

Academic Engagement

• Nonlinguistic Representations– Representing knowledge in a form other than

words• Generating and Testing Hypotheses– Applying knowledge by asking “what if” questions

and clearly explaining conclusions• Advance Questions, Cues, and Organizers– Using prior knowledge to anticipate and enhance

further learning

Intellectual Engagement• Synthesis

– Creating new ideas and information using what has been previously learned (by combining or substituting patterns, or ignoring expected patterns)

• Evaluation– Making informed judgments about the value of ideas, materials, or

situations (comparative or superlative)• Analysis

– Breaking down an idea or concept into parts to examine relationships among the parts (by newly discovered patterns, traits, rules)

• Application– Making use of information in a context different from the one in

which it was learned (using patterns, traits, rules in a new situation)

Egocentric Engagement

• Personal Response• Clear/Modeled Expectations• Emotional/Intellectual Safety• Learning from Others• Sense of Audience• Choice• Novelty and Variety• Authenticity

Personal Response – More than one right answer

Work that engages students almost always focuses on a product or performance of significance to students. When students explain their answers or the logic and reasoning behind those answers, they are invested in their personal response.

Personal ResponseDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Recall of answers Multiple answers possible

Only one answer possible Multiple answers accepted

Only one answer accepted Supported predictions

Opinions

Remembrances

Connections

Comparisons

Analogies

Summary Statements

Explanations

Problem solution strategies

I think…because…

Clear/Modeled Expectations

• Student knows what success “looks like”• Students prefer knowing exactly what is

expected of them, and how those expectations relate to something they care about. Standards are only relevant when those to whom they apply care about them.

Clear/Modeled ExpectationsDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Oral explanations by teacher Students articulate the targets of their personal response

Inconsistent expectations Students inspect for targets in their work

Grading policies Requirements of quantities and qualities in the response

Models of expectation and/or strategy

Visual exemplars that persist

Rubrics and self-assessment

Text support for opinions

I included…when I…

Emotional/Intellectual Safety

• Freedom to take risks• Students are more engaged when they can try

tasks without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or implications that they’re inadequate. Personal response activities that students must support with logic, reasoning or explanation require more intellectual safety than answering a question that has only one right answer.

Emotional/Intellectual SafetyDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Answering single-answer questions Students take risks with “unpopular” or more subtle answers

Answers without explanation Students explain why/how their answer is plausible

Students being correct or incorrect Students are passionate about their answers

Students being allowed to “opt-out” of answering or thinking

First answers are questioned or defended

Students critiqued Sources, evidence, and examples are cited

Reasoning first, answers second

I disagree, because…

Learning with Others

• Sharing and comparing ideas with peers• Students are more likely to be engaged by work that

permits, encourages, and supports opportunities for them to work interdependently with others. Those who advocate cooperative learning understand this well, and also recognize the critical difference between students working together and students working independently on a common task, which may look like group work but isn’t.

• When ideas are shared and compared, then learning takes place.

Learning with OthersDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Simply taking turns talking Think, pair, share

Repeating single answers Literature circles

Group grades Small group discussion

Reciprocal teaching

Peer revision or review

A reports/paraphrases B’s thoughts

Explicit roles

Rotation of tasks

When David talked about the symbolism, I thought about…

Sense of Audience

• Student work is shared• Students are more highly motivated when

their parents, teachers, fellow students and “significant others” make it known that they think the student’s work is important.

• Portfolio assessments, which collect student work for scrutiny by people other than the teacher, can play a significant role in making student work “more visible.”

Sense of AudienceDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Being “singled out” Increased level of concern

Stage fright Connections to audience/purpose

Death by book report Voice

Responsibility to the group

Proficient work posted

Student work as exemplars

The ballgame, the concert, the play

When I finish this business letter, I will mail it to…

Choice

• Students have meaningful options• When students have some degree of control

over what they are doing, they are more likely to feel committed to doing it.

• This doesn’t mean students should dictate school curriculum, however.

• Schools must distinguish between giving students choices in what they do and letting them choose what they will learn.

ChoiceDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Opting out of standards Tiered assignments

Avoiding an assignment Self-selected reading material

Overwhelming choices Product differentiation

Selecting tasks in a rotation Selecting tasks from a list

Meaningful options

Taking control and making decisions

I chose to present my thoughts in graphic form instead of a paragraph.

Novelty and Variety

• Learning experiences are unusual or unexpected• Makes learning more fun not necessarily better• Students are more likely to engage in the work asked of

them if they are continually exposed to new and different ways of doing things. The use of technology in writing classes, for example, might motivate students who otherwise would not write.

• New technology and techniques, however, shouldn’t be used to create new ways to do the same old work.

• New forms of work and new products to produce are equally important.

Novelty and VarietyDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Chaos Variety of products

Lack of procedures and protocols Diverse perspectives

Fun for the sake of fun Integrated fun

Glitter and glue Layered interests

Games

Simulations and role-play

Competitions

Responding “in the voice of…”

Rather than working problems in math today, we each wrote two new word problems.

Authenticity

• Connections to experience or prior learning• This term is bandied about quite a bit by

educators, so much so that the power of the concept is sometimes lost.

• When students are given tasks that are meaningless, contrived, and inconsequential, they are less likely to take them seriously and be engaged by them.

AuthenticityDoes NOT lead to engagement… Leads to engagement…

Vocabulary in isolation Relevance to age/group

Contrived activities Tasks that represent the personalities of the learners

Worksheets Real-life activities

Practice without context Inquiry or discovery learning

Repetition of low-level work Learning in the manner of the original learnersHands-on manipulatives

Current events/issues

Learn then label

Transfer or synthesis beyond content

Extension of workplace activities

Use of workplace or home technology

This is just like on the news last night