My raw notes are posted earlier on this blog, but they don't do much for me unless I mush it all together in my head to summarize and synthesize. With that in mind, This is the fourth of five posts that are my own reflections of some sessions. This one is mostly out of a presentation by Drs. Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley, but there is a little from Dr. Jessica Minahan in here as well. I will take the week off on Christmas weekend, but we will start the year with a very practical post about John Almarode's session on how to construct an engaging lesson.
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We tend to think of engagement as a binary situation. You are either engaged or not, but if you think about your own level of engagement with things in your life, you know that isn't accurate. I have been half-engaged in many meetings, with one eye on my email while I nodded along with the presenter. Even as I write this, I'm also watching the Thanksgiving Day Dog Show, so I look away from what I'm writing frequently to ooh and aah over a cute dog. That said, there are sort of three categories with a spectrum between the first two.
Full engagement - The student is thinking about the lesson you are teaching. Note that even researchers can't always agree about how to measure this because it is hard to visually observe when they are thinking. Some measure eye contact with the teacher, but then they have to recognize that we often look away to think about something. Some measure note-taking, but others recognize that this act might be taking their attention away from the lesson for a moment or that some people doodle as a means of engagement. Chances are, you can recognize full engagement from your students if you know them well.
Not engaged - This is when the student is simply not thinking at all about the lesson. Perhaps they are daydreaming or staring at the floor. I was once in a meeting so boring and so right before lunch that I just put my forehead on the table and looked at my shoes (sorry to the guy leading that, but it was rough). In one of your students, it might be that they are looking at a website that sells shoes. It can look like a lot of things, but all it really means is that they are not thinking about what you are teaching.
Actively disengaged - This one doesn't have to be defined for you because you absolutely know it when you see it. The student is taking action to not think about your lesson on purpose and inviting others to join him. He kicks the chair in front of him, pokes the kid next to him, says off-topic things out loud, flips his water bottle, and just generally finds any way he can not to pay attention.
Students will only be engaged if you make the lesson relevant to THEIR lives. - Well, first of all, if you teach 120 students a day, that's just exhausting (actually, even if you only taught 12 students a day, that would be difficult). They don't all have the same interests or values. According to Daniel Willingham's great book Why Don't Students Like School, most attempts to make a lesson relevant by tying it to pop culture will lead to the student only thinking about the pop culture thing you referenced instead of the thing you were trying to connect it to. So your attempt at engagement paradoxically results in lower engagement.
Trying to do it by trends may also be a problem as it will lead to stereotyping. For example, if you try to tie your math lesson to something you think girls will relate to, you are alienating those girls who aren't "girly." And, those who do like the thing you are trying to connect with may feel that you are being cheesy or condescending. Kids can tell when you aren't being authentic, so don't try to make something fit where it doesn't. That doesn't mean your content doesn't naturally relate to their lives. I teach physics, so I often say, "Where are my runners? My swimmers? My baseball players? My musicians?" and ask them for expertise about their field because it is an example of the concept we are covering. A history teacher is naturally going to end up addressing rights or injustice that connect to students' lives, but it fits there anyway; you aren't shoehorning it in to "make it relevant" while hoping to increase engagement.
Students like technology, so you MUST include technology to get engagement. - I teach in a one-to-one laptop school, so I am not against the use of technology in lessons. There are things your students can accomplish with technology that they could not have without it. BUT the idea that technology has to be involved for a lesson to be engaging is wrong. Students engage in outdoor lessons that don't use tech at all. They are engaged in physical activities whose only technology is shin guards. I have found that sometimes, students are happy to have a breather from their screens. One thing I have loved about my school since the adoption of our one-to-one program is that we were encouraged not to use technology for the sake of it but to match it to the goal of our lesson. Sometimes, technology provides a better way; and sometimes it does not. Use it to meet your learning goals, not to increase engagement.
Learning is only engaging if it is fun. This may be the myth we have been told the most. Students won't engage in a lesson if it isn't fun. Good luck to the history teachers who teach about the atrocities, environmental science teachers who address climate change, and geometry teachers who teach proofs. Even as a science teacher, I have to remind my students that, while I hope the lab is fun, that isn't the purpose. There is a scientific principle to be gleaned from the observations I'm having them make. Chasing engagement through fun is a fool's errand anyway as you can't compete with their entertainment sources. You don't have Marvel's budget or Disney's Imagineers. Your goal isn't entertainment; it is learning. You may succeed with engaging them in an activity while still failing to teach them.
So, now that I've told you what is not going to lead to more engagement, let me depress you a little more. There are five "dis" words that can be considered the "enemies of engagement." And we are seeing them in high numbers post-pandemic. They are disenchantment, disconnection, disassociation, disempowerment, and distraction. The good news is that there are antidotes to these enemies. (Wow, did I ever mix metaphors there. Let's say there are superhero rivals to those enemies.) Let's look at them one at a time.
Disenchantment - It's hard for students to see the magic in much these days. Some of that is a result of their brain chemistry after returning from lockdowns, and some of it is because we are grieving the loss of over a million people without really acknowledging that grief. We are recovering from chronic stress, and they are having difficulty seeing their place in the future. Learning about the periodic table seems a little thin and pale to them. Not surprisingly, the rival of disenchantment is . . . enchantment. This comes from you. You teach chemistry because there is something you find magical about it. You didn't go into teaching math for a living because you hate it; there is something in it that you find really interesting. When you read books to young children, you communicate through your demeanor that you just LOVE books. When I was in middle school, history wasn't my thing, but I adored my history teacher, Mr. Watkins. His favorite thing to study and talk about was the Russian Revolution. I learned a lot about Czar Nicholas and Alexandra and Rasputin. I read the 640 page book about them for no other reason than Mr. Watkins loved it. Over a decade later, I stood in an art museum 1200 miles away, with tears running down my face because I was standing in front of Alexandra's crown. It's going to take some time to re-enchant students, but it starts with showing your enchantment with it. Be authentic about it, but realize you may need to push it harder than you did in the past.
Disconnection - It's hard for students to feel a connection with some of our material. As I already addressed above, the answer is not necessarily to connect it to their lives. What is important is that they see a purpose. In his session, John Almarode said, "They need to know that this information is used by SOMEONE." They need to see that there is meaning in the material for the world. This generation is able to see a broader context better than past ones have been at their age, so if you can show them that what they are learning has meaning and purpose in the world, you can help them connect with it more.
Disassociation - There's no surprise here. The social media that was supposed to connect us has left us disconnected and polarized. Add two years of limited interaction to that, and the news isn't good for students feeling connected to their peers, the future, or your material. Well, teachers, this is what we are good at. We know how to connect kids to each other. Surveying a class to find common ground, giving them a short collaborative activity that requires them to connect, and asking students to turn and talk to their neighbor about what they just learned are all ways of providing connection and belonging. We got this if we just think about it for a minute.
Disempowerment - "Empowering students" and "giving students a voice" are so overused that they are now little more than faddish buzzwords. While both of those things are important, we are addressing how to get kids to engage with a lesson, so think a little smaller. WITHIN your lesson, how can you provide students with a choice? Construct activities in two columns and allow them to decide which one they want to do. You're making the columns, so you can still accomplish what you want, but they feel a little more in control of their lives. "Would you like to write this down now or wait until the end?" is a way to give students a sense of choice. Where the choice has to be yours, taking the time to explain why you made the choice you did honors the student as a human being because you cared enough to explain your thinking.
Distraction - This is the big one. If you asked most teachers why their students aren't engaged, this would probably be the reason they give. They would likely blame technology, but ask an experienced teacher if kids were never distracted before they had computers. I have watched kids read their pencils and play with their own fingers. The rival of distraction isn't sensory deprivation. It's to give them a challenging task that requires all of their focus. Have them build something, engage in a scavenger hunt, make the goal big enough that it requires a lot of thinking. And, of course, recognize that you are going to need to redirect from time to time.
Engagement can also be different in kids with high anxiety and those who have experienced trauma. The amygdala in their brains is sometimes hypervigilant, and that can result in inaccurate self-thoughts when they are stressed. In everyone, stressors are likely to distort our perception (assuming someone is looking at us when we have a zit or spilled coffee on our shirts, walking into a room where people are laughing and assuming that they are laughing at us). In the anxious student, the presence of a pretty normal stressor can result in a complete shutdown, with inaccurate thoughts like, "I just can't do any of this (even when there is evidence to the contrary, like having done well yesterday or having a good grade). They may decide a teacher just hates them (even if there is evidence of much love from them). You will not be able to get them engaged in a class until you have turned down the amygdala by giving them something incompatible with the negative thoughts (today's Wordle, a small Sudoku puzzle, a trivia question on a card). Once their distorted thoughts have calmed down, they may be able to re-engage with the class.
As I said earlier, my next post will contain practical advice on how you can make your lessons foster engagement, so next week, look for some very practical advice.
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