Friday, September 26, 2014

Engagement, Not Compliance

The following article, 4 (Secrets) Keys to Student Engagement, explains the difference between students being compliant versus engaged in the classroom.

As I read the article, I thought about my first years in teaching when I incorrectly correlated student compliance with my teaching effectiveness. As I matured as a teacher through experience and guidance from mentors, I came to realize that it wasn’t compliance but engagement that mattered in the classroom. The more comfortable and confident you become as a teacher, the less worried you are about controlling all aspects of your classroom. (I also erroneously used to equate a quiet classroom as a productive one.)

I really enjoyed the second and third paragraphs that contrast a compliant classroom from an engaged one.

I love so many aspects of Trinity, but tops on the list is how we engage students and respect and trust them as individual learners. 

A personalized classroom is messier than a compliant classroom, yet I am proud to be a part of a school that lifts up student engagement and excitement toward learning as an essential student outcome!

Joe

------------

There is a clear distinction between compliant and engaged students.

The compliant, dutiful learner is easy to manage, does what’s expected, and participates when there’s little risk of being wrong. They follow directions, complete assignments, and get good grades, but their hearts aren’t in it.

Engaged students, on the other hand, follow their own train of thought, focus on the learning, and share their thoughts without being prompted, sometimes without consideration of their classmates. Straightforward questions bore them, but questions that are personally relevant or that require teasing out ambiguity fascinate them. These learners take risks; they’re not afraid to try something new. Engaged learners can be needy. They’re often annoyed by interruptions, they question everything, and they’ll follow an idea even if it takes them outside the parameters of the assignment.”

Compliance may make for a smoothly run classroom, but it doesn’t help students expend the effort they need to meet the demands of challenging standards or take what they’ve learned and apply it to their lives.

How do we get real classroom engagement?

Provide clarity. When you’re in the weeds of daily instruction, you may lose sight of the larger purpose. It’s vital you make sure that every assignment, question, and conversation is connected to a clear learning goal. Ask yourself, what am I asking students to do? How do all these pieces fit together? What’s the point of learning this? How can students track their progress over time? Students should ponder big-picture essential questions about the unit.

Offer a relevant context. A teacher can become frustrated when she introduces a new unit on perimeter and area and students ask, Why do we need to know this? Why is it so important to be able to do this? and Why will we ever need to know this in life? Our students need to know that the work they’re being asked to do is relevant and important to them – right now. Someday is not a day of the week.

Create a supportive classroom culture. Students get discouraged and disengaged when their work is criticized and given low grades. Can students access the material, understand the discussion, and meet the challenges you’re giving them? Have likely misconceptions been anticipated, have students been introduced to difficult vocabulary, is there a scaffold for handling new concepts, and is individual support available to help them revise their work when it isn’t up to par?

Provide an appropriate level of challenge. Students may be able to complete assignments that can be easily Googled or “Khanified”, but they don’t respect them and there’s little value-added. We have to train them for the world they’ll inherit, and in that world it’s unlikely that employers will pay them to solve a non-problem. Teachers need to give assignments that ask students to frame ideas, questions, or predictions; to figure out a real problem; and to risk failure to get to the final product. Offer experiences that enable them to play with ideas; solve complex, real-world problems; and dig deeper – for example, interviewing a personal hero, figuring out a way to cover themselves so they won’t get poison ivy next summer, and designing headphones that won’t cause long-term hearing problems.


No comments:

Post a Comment