This week I had the opportunity to learn with thousands of other educators at the National Conference of ASCD (Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development) which took place here in Houston this year. It is always uplifting to be a student and inspiring to meet other educators from around the world, all of whom are dedicating their lives to helping others discover and develop their potential. Isn't it ironic that when we are in school many of us can't wait to get out, and later we cherish the opportunity to learn with others?
Even though the theme of the conference this year was Disruptive Innovation, what I found was that in session after session that I attended the key word that kept coming up was Engagement. What is Engagement? According to Allison Zmuda, who gave a talk on Student Engagement, it refers to "when students choose to invest and reinvest their attention and their effort in the pursuit of a learning goal."
Andy Hargreaves, in his talk on Uplifting Leadership, discussed the origin of the word Engagement. It turns out that the word Engagement comes from 16th century Europe where it referred to military battle. Only about 100 years later do we find the word starting to be used in the context of getting married [insert marriage joke here...]. And Dr. Hargreaves noted that we think of marriage as long lasting, as requiring sacrifice and hard work, as being worthwhile and uplifting. So when it comes to engaging students in learning, the goal is to help students see that by working hard they will reap long lasting benefits to themselves which will open new horizons to them.
The question then becomes, how do we do that? One of the best talks I attended was given by an amazing educator named Rafe Esquith (trust me - look him up!)He mentioned two strategies that successful teachers do to engage their students. 1) They take the time to explain the relevance of what he is teaching them so that students understand why it is important for them. 2) They teach things that they love and do so in a fun way. You can't expect your students to be excited and engage did you are not yourself.
Along the same lines, I loved a talk I heard by Myron Dueck, who spoke about how to assess Creativity. He gave many examples of teachers who are allowing their students to demonstrate learning in creative ways, which builds their interest and keeps them engaged. And he showed that you can do so without sacrificing expectations.
Another great talk was by Dr. Rick Duvall, who had several hundred attendees learn practical activities we can use in our classrooms to engage students by having us experience those activities ourselves. Many of the activities were fairly simple games and collaborative activities, but if you develop a bag of these tricks up your sleeve it allows you to engage the entire class (not just the extroverts) in a fun and interactive way.
But as Allison Zmuda noted, there's a difference between engaging students and entertaining them. The goal is for them to be active learners, curious about the world, confident that they can find solutions to the questions that are bothering them. In fact, Myron Dueck noted that when hiring, Google looks for people, not necessarily with the highest GPA or test scores, but who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer. This is what we call inquiry. And in fact, he said, the ones getting paid the most are not the problem solvers, but the problem predictors.
Student Engagement sounds great on paper, but as every teacher knows, it is not easy. Not every student learns the same way, is interested in the same things, or has the same drive. I have been thinking a lot about another talk I heard, from Stacy Nelson, about Bridging the Gap between Expectation and Performance. He helped us think about the different types of conversations we have with people who are not engaged and are not meeting our expectations. And one of the key things is establishing trust and conveying the feeling that you are friend; not foe. That will open up dialogue and help you understand why the person is not on board and what you can do to help get them going in the right direction.
As a classroom teacher and a Principal I think about Student Engagement on a daily basis (maybe that's why I naturally kept hearing that theme come up again and again). I hope that when my students think of me years down the line they will picture more the type of engaging teacher associated with close relationships than with battles, and that they will remember that I taught them that with hard work they really can solve problems and make the world better.
