Administrators from superintendents to the local schoolhouse principals enter the classroom and look for this key indicator: engagement. During your post observation conference, it is likely that this question will be raised and there will be that selection of students who seemed to be detached from the learning environment. Perhaps they did not raise their hand, refrained from participating in the group discussion, or were drawing doodles at their seat. Whatever their conduct, it boils down to how you as a teacher can have effective classroom management skills that foster active student engagement.
Therein lies the biggest problem for all classroom teachers and it leaves us all wondering, “How do I craft a lesson where they all are engaged and sharing their thoughts?” What I am proposing here is that there needs to be a shift in our collective thought process of ‘classroom engagement,’ or ‘student engagement.’
Whereas the question, “Are they engaged?” only lends itself to a cursory study of what is truly going on in a student’s ability to appear engaged. For example, a student may look like they are working, may raise their hand, but their thought process is focused on something else completely. Asking about student engagement only brings attention to the students who ‘play school’ well, the ones who consistently show that they are tapped in and taking part in the educational setting. On the other hand, those who do not ‘play school’ well are tapped out. They were done learning before they got to school and in their bag of tricks they have a collection of distraction and work avoidance tactics.
Cognitive connections, students discussing instructional topics with alacrity, accuracy and evidence to support claims, are what educators should desire to see and experience in the classroom. Crafting lessons that challenge students to become a part of the process of gaining new knowledge, seeking to understand it in a way that evokes the senses and links it to experiences that make them think, making cognitive connections, about their learning will ultimately create a classroom culture where all students desire to partake in the educational experience.
How do I craft lessons that take students up a notch and into the realm of cognitive connections? Students like to talk so I propose that we create lessons that give them an opportunity to do so:
Debates: Debates require students to make a personal connection to a topic, own it as their own, and defend it to opposition. It creates cognitive connections by creating an atmosphere of thinking in real time after they have dedicated some time to research. Start off small with presenting students with both sides of a topic. Do his through visual media, reading an article, or let them select their own source document. Use debate partners who are on opposing sides. Have them prepare their talking points and questions together, and encourage them to talk to each other about how they can counter the other’s claims. Often we have students prepare solo or in a team of likeminded individuals, but partnering with the opposition will help students understand how the opposition may pick apart their argument.
Collaborative Groups: Collaborative groups of 3 to 4 students can be very powerful when you push the student task beyond simply preparing a project or presenting ideas together. When putting students in a group we need to align that group with a mission that allows them to use their collective thinking to develop an end product that demonstrates a higher level of learning than they would achieve if they worked by themselves. For example, a poster on Nelson Mandela with a set of requirements may be a good group project. However, using that same group of students to take their research, create discussion questions, select information or ideas that can be opposed, and present it to the class in a way that is innovative (using technology, acting, role playing, …) takes their group effort from fact finding and reporting to a whole new level where they are taking ownership of their learning and creating a learning experience for their peers.
Socratic Seminar: A Socratic Seminar is a discussion that takes place in a circle and is based on a reading selection, picture or in some cases a video. The circle can be big or small, but typically a Socratic Seminar in my classroom is run with my whole class. Teachers often develop the question sets for their students and create ways to make the discussion equitable so that it isn’t always the top five students in class answering question after question. Ideally, the discussion should be completely student run. Assign a student reading, have them to take notes and prepare for questions, and then have them develop their own question set. Encourage them to create questions that make you think, reflect, and refer back to the text and to stay away from questions that are only asking for details from the reading. To start off, you may need to heavily model the type of questioning. As time goes by, student ownership of the process should be encouraged. Therefore, creating a classroom culture where students become masters of the materials and feel comfortable challenging and questioning one another in an academic setting. This is a prime example of the type of thinking demonstrated when students show that they are making cognitive connections.
Will my classroom be loud? Not necessarily. It will have a lot more talking, but it will be on topic. When you try one of the models above, I suggest that you set firm guidelines and model the desired behaviors. Teach the class what you expect from them and how you will signal them that you want their attention. Create a ‘tapped in,’ signal. My students know when I say, “Tap in!” that I want them to tap their desk, stop talking and look up at me. Once I have their attention, I praise them by drawing their attention to what I see going well in the classroom, redirect them if I see some things that need improvement or clarification, and I remind them of where they should be in the process.
Next year take your instructional practices a step beyond student engagement to cognitive connections and challenge your students to be “Tapped In” to their learning experience. By doing so you are creating students that are not just ‘playing school,’ but are becoming higher level thinkers.
Definitions:
Cognitive Connections: A level of classroom instruction that promotes a learning environment where students discuss or write about instructional topics with alacrity, accuracy and evidence to support claims. An instructional process where gaining new knowledge causes students seek to understand it in a way that evokes the senses and links it to experiences that make them think.