1. Increasing Student Engagement in the Classroom
Pathfinder RVT School
May 3, 2017
Linda Denault, Ed.D.
Nancy Spitulnik, Ed.D.

2. Agenda for Today
What is true student engagement and what does it look like and feel like in the classroom?
What are the categories of student engagement strategies?
How do I incorporate different categories of student engagement strategies into my classroom?
Agenda – questions-objectives we hope to involve you in answering this afternoon. Hope by end of presentation today and on May 24th – can answer all 3 questions.
12:00-12:03

3. 1 2
Which picture(s) show true student engagement? Talk to a neighbor. Briefly review some responses – which picture and why. From your discussions at your table, record 1 or 2 main ideas about what student engagement is. Interesting observation when looking for pictures. Many pictures showed smiling, happy students. Realized I would rather see students concentrating and engaged in thought – really thinking about they’re doing and learning.
Will try to make this an engaging presentation! Can a lesson (or presentation) be 100% student-centered and engaging? Are there times you just have to give students content, which may not be totally active engagement? Or do you think everything should be student-centered?
Have learned a lot from designing this workshop. Used to do typical powerpoint, with some built in discussions. Not really engaging. Still learning how to do a more engaging presentation. Hope this workshop meets your expectations and my expectations.
12:03-12:13 3 4

4. What is Student Engagement?
1) Independent motivation to learn
Persistence to work through challenges
Engaged in constructing their own understanding of knowledge by thinking deeply and making connections to prior information and real-world applications
Talking about student engagement – what it looks like and what it feels like. Looking at responses from pictures. First time principal – walking through classrooms – grade 6 – on student just sitting while others working. Asked him what he was doing – he said, “I’m thinking!”
Found many different definitions – some of the main ideas we found.
12:13-12:15
Close your eyes and try to picture what your classroom would look like – re-read definition.

5. Student Engagement Shift in Thinking Less of a focus on teaching the content, and more of a focus on what students will be doing to learn and understand the content.
When talking about engagement, should focus on how you’re teaching and what students are doing during the lesson. In doing this presentation, found we had to focus less on presenting the content we were teaching, and more on what we were having you do to better understand the content. Subtle shift in how you approach teaching.
12:15-12:16
Doesn’t mean you completely give up teaching the content – refer to previous discussion. Times you have to give content. But think of ways to present that better engage students. Big focus of this workshop.

6. Self-Assessment Activity
In thinking about your last few lessons:
What percentage of time was direct teacher delivery?
What percentage of time were students actively involved in creating their own learning and understanding of the content?
What percentage of time were students working collaboratively?
On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest), how concerned are you about “covering” content?
Do handout. Then short table discussion. Each table report out most significant comment or realization.
12:16-12:25

7. Five Levels of Student Engagement (Phillip Schlechty)
Authentic Engagement
Strategic Compliance
Ritual/Passive Compliance
Retreatism
Rebellion
Look at handout in packet – briefly discuss definitions. Probably see this type of engagement in each of your classrooms. Again, is it realistic to think of having authentic engagement 100% of the time from 100% of your students? Is it a more realistic goal that you’ll work to increase the percentage of authentic engagement in your classroom and with a percentage of your students?
12:25-12:30

8. Levels of Engagement Authentic Engagement Strategic Compliance
Passive Compliance
Retreatism
Rebellion
Should aim for Highly Engaged Classroom. Have them think about classes they’ve had that show these characteristics.
Do activity – give each table a card – give you 5 minutes – come up with 2-3 minute skit – one person teacher, the rest students – have to act out the level of engagement on the card I’ll give you. Rest of group has to guess which level.
How did you feel? Those of you who were students, did it help you better understand what your students would be feeling? Those of you who were teachers, did you differentiate what you asked students to do based on which level you were? Other thoughts and comments?
12:30-12:32

9. Levels of Engagement Activity
Card for each table with
one level of engagement
One person is teacher,
rest are students
Have to act out level of
engagement on the card –
2-3 minute skit
Five minutes to prepare skit
Rest of group guesses which
level of engagement
Authentic Engagement
Strategic Compliance
Passive Compliance
Retreatism
Rebellion
Do activity – give each table a card – give you 5 minutes – come up with 2-3 minute skit – one person teacher, the rest students – have to act out the level of engagement on the card I’ll give you. Rest of group has to guess which level.
12:32-12:55

10. Student Engagement Relationships
Teacher
Student
Meaningful Engagement
Expertise
Relevance
Informational slide! Simple way of looking at student engagement – convergence of 3 things – student, teacher, content. (Animated – intersections will come in with clicks.)
12:55-12:56
Content
(Drew Perkins, 2013)

11. Promoting Student Engagement: Categories of Strategies
Higher-order thinking skills
Variety and novelty
Collaboration
Choice
Relevance
Project-based learning
(Adapted from Olatunji, Sockwell, & Milan, 2009)
Important question – how do you structure your teaching to engage students? Can find lots of lists and handouts that give you pointers for engaging students. How many of you have lots of lists of activities to do? Does it make your head spin? Pull up typical list – 130 ways to engage your students…
12:56-1:00
Last year, we did student engagement presentation at a literacy conference in Connecticut. I went crazy trying to organize the slide show. Looked at lots of different articles. Finally found one article that briefly mentioned putting all those different activities into categories. Finally made sense to me, and showed me a way to organize and integrate engaging activities into classroom lessons.
These are 6 categories that can incorporate all the different examples of student-centered, engaging lessons for students.
List originally included Active Participation as a category, but feel this isn’t really a strategy, it’s a goal for student engagement. If you can weave in all of these different strategies, you will be getting active participation from your students.

12. Categories of Strategies Jigsaw
Divide into groups of 6 people.
Each person takes one article from the handout packet.
SKIM article and fill out your section of chart with key points. Can also use information from slides.
Take turns sharing information with others in the group to fill in chart:
What the strategy is
Why it’s important to engagement
Examples of the strategy
At this point in our normal presentations, we would spend the next minutes going through 15 slides giving you information about each category of strategies. We would be giving you the content, but not engaging you in learning and understanding it yourself.
Good place to do jigsaw activity, which we’re sure some of you already do. Have you break up into groups of 6. In your packets are separate articles about each of the engagement strategies. Each person take one article, read or skim it, can highlight important information. Then take turns sharing 2-3 important points. Others put in chart – what the strategy is, why it’s important, examples of the strategy. Show them slides and handouts.
At the end of the activity, will have some information about each of the strategies.
1:00-1:20

13. 1. Higher-Order Thinking Skills
Students need to be engaged in challenging activities, not low-level assignments
Questions, discussions, and assignments need to include higher-level tasks
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Chart provide models and specific language for incorporating higher-level cognitive skills

14. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Provide more detailed chart – discuss briefly – Where have you seen this language before? Your teacher evaluation form!

15. Teacher Observation Form
Student Thinking Skills Demonstrated
Remember (recognize, recall)
Understand (interpret, classify, compare, explain, infer)
Apply (execute, implement)
Summarize
Analyze (differentiate, organize, attribute)
Evaluate (check, critique)
Create (generate, plan, produce)
Does having this on your observation form help you think about the level of thinking skills you’re presenting? If it doesn’t, would understanding the context of this now change what you do in the classroom? Turn to a neighbor and discuss briefly.

16. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge
Provide handout. Discuss briefly.

17. 2. Variety and Novelty Human beings crave variety and novelty.
Students get bored quickly if instruction is repetitive and low level, hindering engagement in the lesson.
Students usually rise to a challenge to do things in a new way or learn new, interesting information.
Need to constantly work to find new ways to present material and engage students.
Discuss briefly

18. 3. Collaboration
Encouraging students to reach out to each other to solve problems and share knowledge not only builds collaboration skills, it leads to deeper learning and understanding.
Teachers must be willing to give power to students to lead discussions, make choices.
Teachers need to directly teach and model how to collaborate and have productive group discussions.
Important to focus on the process, not the right answer.
Discuss briefly.

19. 4. Choice
Students are motivated when given a choice in their education – assignments, assessments, etc.
Students build self-esteem and sense of mastery through making choices, and experiencing the consequences of their choices.
Being able to make such choices “leads to learning rather than just remembering.” (grade 10 student)
We cannot expect children to accept ready-made values and truths all the way through school, and then suddenly make choices in adulthood. (Constance Kamii)
Choice – contrast to teacher motivation – given all scripted material to teach – no choice or chance for interest or creativity.

20. Incorporating Academic Choice
Seating
Homework
Choice boards for classwork
Summative projects
Learning celebrations
Assessments
Unstructured innovation
time (Ronan, 2015)
Discuss briefly. Uses of academic choice – learn new skills or information, practice new skills, demonstrate mastery of skills or content. Refer to handout.

21. 5. Relevance of Activities
In a teaching/learning setting, relevance should draw and hold students’ attention.
No matter how disinteresting content may seem, once students have determined that the content is worth knowing, then it will hold their attention and engage them. (Roberson, 2013)
Students need a personal connection to the material, whether that's through engaging them emotionally or connecting the new information with previously acquired knowledge (Bernard, 2010)
Why are we learning this? When will I ever use this stuff?l What does this have to do with me?

22. Adding Relevancy
Brainstorm what students already know and connect it to the new lesson or unit of study
Have students describe personal connections to the new material being presented
Introduce lesson with an engaging story that ties in the new material with student interests
Let students choose a topic of their own interest for an assignment that’s related to the unit of study
Discuss briefly.

23. 6. Project-Based Learning (PBL)
“In-depth investigation of a real-world topic worthy of children's attention and effort." (Chard)
“When educators provide rigorous and authentic projects and give students voice and choice, students will accept that challenge.” (Andrew Miller, 2014)
Students learn more rigorous information, retain what they learn, and make connections and apply their learning to other problems (Curtis, 2001)
Discuss briefly.

24. Components of PBL
1. Significant Content st Century Skills 3. In-Depth Inquiry 4. A Driving Question 5. A Need to Know 6. Student Voice and Choice 7. Revision and Reflection 8. A Public Audience
Discuss briefly.

25. Project Learning
Phase 1 involves an initial discussion of a project topic, including student’s firsthand experiences related to the topic.
Phase 2 involves fieldwork, sessions with experts, and various aspects of gathering information, reading, writing, drawing, and computing.
Phase 3 is the presentation of
the project to an audience. (Chard)
Discuss briefly.

26. Engage-O-Meter □ Incorporates higher-order thinking
□ Incorporates higher-order thinking
□ Challenging but achievable
□ Provides variety or novelty
□ Arouses curiosity
□ Allows for collaboration
□ Gives students control and choice
□ Has real-life connections
□ Experiential, hands-on
Like this Engage-O-Meter. Helps you judge whether your lessons incorporate engaging strategies. In an average week of teaching classes, what would your engage-o-meter look like. Do handout – engage-o-meter – check boxes. (John having his on wall in his office.) Use engage-o-meter in next session when they’re planning model lessons. But how you do incorporate this into your planning of lessons?
1:20-1:23

27. How to Plan for Engaging Strategies
Need easy way to keep engaging strategies in mind. One thought on how to embed strategies in weekly lesson plans. For every lesson, think about how you’re going to engage students. Use a variety of methods to keep lessons fresh and novel. Question – do all lessons need to be engaging? Do you have to do some lessons just to give content? Can you make content lessons engaging? Will students be more engaged in these lessons if most of your other lessons are engaging? Do I have to differentiate my approach based on the student characteristics in each class? All questions that you’ll have to judge as you move forward with your planning on May 24th.

28. Carousel Brainstorm
Chart paper placed on each table with different types of engagement strategies listed at the top.
Break into groups of 5-6 from different subject areas
Working as a collaborative group, rotate through the charts and list specific examples of activities or lessons that you use or could use that integrates the strategy listed
Figure out how much time left to do this activity – groups may not get to every chart. Groups should rotate. Report out if time – major thoughts, what you learned, what you can try…
1:26-1:50

29. Strategies for Student Engagement: List from Eighth Grade Students
Work with peers (We want to interact with others.)
Work with technology (Kids now living and learning in the digital world.)
Connect the real world to our work (How does learning relate to what’s happening now? Do project-based learning.)
Clearly love what you do (Show passion in the way you teach.)
Get me out of my seat! (We learn better when we’re active and not just sitting.)
Discuss briefly. Ask your students what is engaging for them! List from middle school students. Refer to article.
1:50-2:20

30. Strategies for Student Engagement: List from Eighth Graders (2)
Bring in visuals (Makes learning more interesting, helps me understand better.)
Student choice (Helps us use our strengths, be creative, enjoy learning more.)
Understand and appreciate the students (Give us credit for what we know and can do.)
Mix it up! (Find ways to add variety to lessons and assignments so we don’t get bored).
Be human! (Have some fun yourself!)
(Wolpert-Gawron, 2015)
Homework – ask your students what’s engaging to them. Bring responses.

31. Review of Agenda for Today
What is true student engagement and what does it look like and feel like in the classroom?
What are the categories of student engagement strategies?
How do I incorporate different categories of student engagement strategies into my classroom?
Briefly review three objectives from today’s agenda.
2:00-2:05

32. What’s Next? Meet again May 24th Hands-on work session
Opportunity to apply strategies and thinking we’ve discussed today
Come prepared to develop/revise lesson/unit of study for next year
Work in small groups/departments
Opportunity for interdepartmental collaboration including academic-vocational partnerships
Review next session. Do exit ticket.
2:05-2:10

33. Wrap-up – exit ticket:
1 new realization about my teaching strategy
1 new idea they got for student engagment