Keep Engagement Strategies Simple
When students actively engage in learning tasks, teachers are happy because the students are following the rules and doing their work. Students participate and demonstrate curiosity, interest, commitment and achievement. They generally stay on task, cause little trouble and often receive good grades. Are these learners truly engaged learners or are they just doing what they need to do to please the teacher? The following are six myths that teachers should watch out for if they truly want their students to be engaged learners.
Myth #1: When students track you with their eyes or nod when you speak, these are indicators that students are engaged. This is a myth. Have you ever feigned attentiveness in a class or a lecture and your mind was really a million miles away? Students fake attentiveness in just the same way. Most teachers can tell when this is happening, but some don’t pay attention and simply keep carrying on with a lesson.
Tip #1: Be a diligent observer. Know when students are simply tracking your movements versus truly engaging with the lesson.
Myth #2: Students who are engaged learners are obedient learners. While this may be true of some engaged learners, however other learners do not want to stop doing their work. They may not want to stop carrying on a conversation when you call time. Still other engaged learners follow their own modified instructions because they prefer to do an assignment their own way.
Tip #2: Provide lesson components that are differentiated to allow for student learning preferences.
Myth #3: Engaged students stay on task. We often think that an engaged learner will produce work if they stay on task. However, truly engaged students may go off task. They might become so interested in learning that they spend time on related content that is not part of the assignment.
Tip #3: You want to encourage students’ interests. The interests should be related to the content associated with the task at hand. You need to help students understand that they should spend time on the required learning and negotiate with you additional time to accommodate any related interests which are not part of the assigned task.
Myth #4: Engaged students always complete assignments. This myth is not true because some students are perfectionists who do not feel their work is perfect enough. The perfectionists either turn their work in late or worse – they don’t turn their work in at all. They may want
more time to get the assignment completely right.
Tip #4: You cannot judge a student’s engagement by their productivity. Truly engaged students may appear less productive than students who just try to get their assignment done for the sake of completing the assignment.
Myth #5: Engaged students are courteous. They wait their turn before speaking and they honor social norms. This is certainly not true of engaged students who are so excited about their learning! They often shout out and forget to wait their turn. These students are engrossed in learning and skip niceties. Students who are engaged learners may be impulsive and take over class discussions.
Tip #5: While it is important for students to be polite, politeness is not necessarily a sign of engagement.
Myth #6: Engaged students seek entertainment. Teachers feel the pressure to find some fun activity or some cool demonstration to spark engagement. Teachers use entertainment as a way to capture and hold students’ attention and interest. However, there is a difference
between a student who is eager and one who is merely entertained. Entertainment itself does not ensure engagement.
Tip #6: Set the tone for engagement by creating a classroom atmosphere that promotes happiness, confidence, enthusiasm and laughter. Don’t just entertain. Set a positive classroom climate conducive to engagement. Here are a few strategies that can help you with student
engagement. Teachers can use a Teacher-Engage-O-Meter graphic that is included in my book Inspiring Student Empowerment Moving Beyond Engagement Refining Differentiation, to help them reflect upon the degree of engagement in a lesson. For example, students are asked to visualise how they might feel if they were a plant and respond in their science journal. The teacher uses the Teacher-Engage-O-Meter to indicate whether the class appears engaged in the content of the lesson (knowing parts of the plant), the process of the lesson (visualising) or the product (responding in the science journal). In this example, the students know the parts of the plant and they like to
visualise them, but the product form falls short. Next time, the teacher will ask for a more engaging product form rather than requiring students to write in their science journals.
Some other ways to engage students include giving students interesting content and challenging them to make meaning. Teachers can spark their curiosity with novelty, humor and questioning techniques. However, we must all remember that no strategy or technique is as effective
as when teachers seek student engagement by caring and building relationships with their students.
