Engaging Students in School and the Classroom

This week’s article summary from the American Journal of Education is Reflectiveness, Adaptivity, and Support: How Teacher Agency Promotes Student Engagement.

The work we did last year identifying the six pillars of our program affirmed a vital outcome of a Trinity education: Building upon children’s innate curiosity in fostering their continued engagement in and excitement for school and life-long learning.

This article resonated for me in its categorization of the different types of student engagement: behavioral, emotional, cognitive.

Then it shared research on ways to optimize student engagement in the classroom, e.g., positive classroom climate, high teacher expectations, opportunities for student voice and choice.

Finally, the article highlighted the characteristics teachers who consistently engage students possess. I was especially intrigued with teachers being able to prioritize the curriculum and to reflect on their teaching effectiveness.

This article reminded of the theme of Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. According to Pink, the three essential needs that motivate kids (and adults) to learn and to be productive (hence to be engaged) are autonomy (the desire to direct our own lives), mastery (the urge to get better at something that matters), and purpose (the yearning to do what we do in service of something larger and more enduring than ourselves).

Since its founding, Trinity has worked to create a culture that allows all of us—students, faculty/staff, and parents—to be known, to make a difference, and to be empowered to develop a confident sense of self.

And as the article attests, this doesn’t result from happenstance but from specific qualities teacher display and continue to hone.

Joe

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Student engagement in school is fundamental to positive educational and life outcomes, including learning, achievement, graduation, and persistence in higher education.

By contrast, disengagement can be a precursor to negative outcomes, including low achievement, social and emotional withdrawal, and dropping out.

What are the key variables in capturing and maintaining students’ engagement?

Student engagement falls into a number of categories:

• Behavioral engagement: participating, staying on task, and completing assignments
• Emotional engagement: feeling happy, interested, and comfortable in class
• Cognitive engagement: exerting mental effort to learn

Additionally, student engagement requires the following:

• Positive classroom climate: students have a sense of belonging in a caring, structured learning environment with high, clear, and fair expectations
• Teacher support: Students form an emotional connection to the teacher
• Academic rigor: There is an academic tone, high cognitive demand, and students are pushed to work hard
• Lively teaching and active learning: students have opportunities to learn in groups and work on projects that have real-life relevance
• Efficacy: students feel competent and have a degree of autonomy in the classroom

Teachers who consistently engage their student possess the following characteristics:

• Notice students’ level of engagement on their faces and modify classroom strategies or make sure troubled students saw a counselor
• Are attuned to students’ outside-of-school problems and address them in class or in private conversations
• Prioritize curriculum standards and work to make them engaging
• Are more reflective about instruction, open-minded, inquisitive, and adaptive, with a stronger sense of agency

Teachers who are less effective engaging students are:

• Less likely to see students’ responses as providing guidance for improving their teaching
• More removed, abstract, and theoretical when talking about their teaching, using phrases like “teachers should do” rather than “I do”
• More likely to feel overwhelmed by curriculum standards and see them as impossible to get through and engage students
• Lacking in a sense of agency about being able to change and improve student engagement, often ascribing students’ lack of engagement to negative factors outside the school or just the way students were.