Student Engagement in Educational Settings

Assessing Student Engagement Content compiled, edited, and summarized by Leah Jefferson.

What is Student Engagement? Early studies of student engagement often focused on time-on-task behaviors. More recently, it has been used to depict students willingness to participate in routine school activities. Another definition focuses on more subtle cognitive, behavioral, and affective indicators of student engagement in specific learning tasks.

Cognitive/Intellectual/Academic: Engagement of the Mind Beliefs and Values Examples: Students opinions on their schools contributions in developing the students essential skills. Influenced my development of Writing skills Influenced my development of Critical thinking Intellectually challenged Giving of maximum student effort Involved in Discussions and debates Assigned Projects involving technology Set Academic goals and plans for the future Highest level of education desired Behavior/Social: Engagement in the Life of the School Habits and Skills Examples: Attendance and behavior during school Number of hours students spent in school- sponsored activities Participation in school sponsored activities Parents desire them to go to school Emotional/Affective: Engagement of the Heart Motivation and Feelings Examples: Attend because of a teacher Want to see friends Felt supported by teachers Feel safe at school NAIS pilot study using the High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE)

Teachers have the greatest influence on the level of student engagement. Engagement: Observable interest and/or attention to a learning task prescribed by the teacher. Students are engaged when they are: Interested in the work Challenged by the work Satisfied with the work Persistent in the work Committed to the work Students are volunteers. Their attendance can be commanded, but their attention must be earned.

Engagement-Based Learning and Teaching Approach Simply telling or encouraging students to engage themselves in their class work is seldom enough. This foundation is built through specific principles, habits, skills, and strategies. All members of the school community should join forces to develop school-wide practices that cultivate student engagement beliefs, values, feelings, motivation, behavioral habits, and skills that are at the crux of high levels of student engagement.

Engagement-Based Learning and Teaching Approach Six objectives: 1. Cultivate one-on-one relationships: The student-teacher relationship can lead to increased student motivation and higher levels of engagement in academics and school life. 2. Learn new skills and habits: Teachers can learn new skills and habits that help them to develop, polish, and enhance their already natural inclination to motivate and engage. 3. Incorporate systematic strategies: Teachers can learn strategies that facilitate student engagement. 4. Take responsibility for student engagement practices: It is primarily the teacher s responsibility to engage the students, as opposed to the teacher expecting students to come to class naturally and automatically engaged. 5. Promote a schoolwide culture of engagement: Develop and maintain a schoolwide initiative that is dedicated to creating a culture of student engagement, involving students in school activities, and providing a rigorous and relevant education program for all students. 6. Professional development is an important part of increasing student engagement: Staff development, combined with staff ownership and recognition, is critical to developing and maintaining a culture of effective student engagement. See article: Strengthening Student Engagement by Dr. Richard D. Jones, International Center for Leadership in Education for additional specific details.

How is Student Engagement Measured? Indirect assessment includes a student s own perception of personal learning or development. This process involves having students self-report what they believe they learned and/or the extent of their learning. Indirect assessment can include reflections, interviews, inventories, and self- assessment. Pro: Easy and can get a lot of feedback very quickly from a lot of participants Con: Students can under-inflate or over-inflate their proficiency level or what they believe they learned leading to biased data Direct assessment occurs when someone other than the student evaluates the student s learning or development. Direct assessment can include tests, student work analysis, demonstrations, observations, or feedback to show that learning or development has occurred. Teacher checklists and rating scales. Pro: Removes bias of student self-assessing. Con: Can be more difficult to do with large groups of students you want to assess.

Post, Then Pre Assessment This method of assessment involves asking students to rate their current knowledge, value, ability, or behavior after having participated in an experience and then asking them to reflect back and rate those same dimensions before participating in the engagement experience. Pro: After having participated in the engagement experience, students may have a more accurate perspective of what their knowledge, value, ability, and behavior levels were prior to the experience; only involves one assessment, thus taking less time to administer. Con: Depending how long the engagement experience was, it may be difficult for students to recall their competency levels prior to participation, leading to inaccurate reporting.

Reflections Some of the best learning comes from reflecting on an experience. Through thinking about an experience after the fact, people can often figure out what worked, what didn t, what they learned, and what they would do differently or the same if they were to have the experience again. And the thoughts derived from reflection can impact a person s thoughts, opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and values. Reflection, though, becomes assessment when the answers to those questions are shared with the person collecting the data. And, that data can be very robust and full of great information. Teacher reflection is important but STUDENT reflection can be the missing piece. Student reflection can take many forms: Exit slips: See article: Art and Science of Teaching/The Many Uses of Exit Slips Check for understanding: See article: Techniques to Check for Understanding.

Reflections Examples of Reflection Prompts What? So what? Now what? (Borton, 1970) What happened? So what does it mean? Now what am I going to do? Plus/Delta What were the pluses or good aspects of this scenario? What would I change for next time? Highs and Lows What were the high points of this experience? What were the low points? Reasons to Use Reflections To find out in students own words their thoughts, opinions, and attitudes. To gather stories to support other assessment findings. To gather assessment data in an interesting way for students, increasing their commitment to providing thorough responses.

Feedback Feedback is letting the learner know the accuracy of a response to an expectation (Mory, 2003). Feedback usually occurs when someone who oversees a student in a role or task provides information to the student to enhance performance. Feedback can provide the student a perspective change, validate performance, and build a trusting and respectful relationship with the student. Feedback should: Include clear expectations with specific measurable outcomes. Have set timelines or milestones for these outcomes. Be behavior focused and include only those competencies/capacities that can be learned and developed. Be given in a timely manner. Be ongoing and incorporated into annual evaluations, weekly meetings, and daily review time. Include both positive and critical feedback.

Feedback Examples of Feedback Prompts When giving students feedback, consider using the following prompts to help guide the conversation (if the feedback is verbal) or in compiling a performance review (if the feedback is in writing). This will ensure the feedback is specific and includes positive and critical feedback. What should the student keep doing? What should the student stop doing? What should the student start doing? Reasons to Use Feedback To measure the growth in student performance over a period of time. To engage in a developmental process involving coaching and sharing opportunities for improvement.

An Idea.. Ask students what they are interested in learning through (the engagement) experience and design a learning contract with them. Have students identify: 1. The goals they have for their personal development through participating in the engagement experience 2. The outcomes they would like to achieve in terms of competency development 3. Their proposed learning method to achieve their goals and outcomes 4. How they intend to measure their progress toward goals and achievement of outcomes 5. Then, help mentor and guide the students to fulfill their own learning contract! Review packet examples and motivation style

Why are Students Disengaged? 2 out of 3 students bored one day in a week. of students are bored every day in a week. 1 out of every 6 students are bored every class in a day. Why they felt so bored: 81% responded that the material wasn t interesting. 42% felt a lack of relevance caused the boredom. Engaging in learning activities is an active action. It takes focus. Since focusing can be tiring, students will often decide to switch off if they don t find the effort rewarding enough. This is where the boredom comes in. Article: Engage or Enrage me

Investigate The perceived lack of relevance of classroom materials is the biggest contributing factor that needs improved upon. Engage students by asking them for their opinions and acting on them. First find out how engaged your students already are. The Gallup Student Poll is an online poll made up of 20 well-researched questions designed to assess the hope, engagement, and wellbeing of American children. The poll takes 8 to 10 minutes to complete and is entirely free to any public school in the United States. http://www.gallupstudentpoll.com/171791/gallup-student- poll.aspx Explain to students why you are asking them to complete the poll and let them know that their school cares about their wellbeing. Reassure your students that you are listening to their feedback and that the results will be studied carefully and acted upon.

Investigate: Engage students mentally through self discovery and goal-setting. (Learning about themselves, individual strengths, learning styles, personality type, career exploration) Engage students socially by praising student achievements through regular, recurring, and important school communications. (Social media, bulletin boards, newsletters, announcements, and blogs) Engage students emotionally by providing examples of career success. (Real life professionals talk about their careers and involved in projects to connect learning to life.) (Check out: Roadtrip Nation Interview Archive 3500 videos of individuals who have forged through challenges to accomplish unique goals) Engage students emotionally by connecting them to adults. (Mentors, role models, parent engagement, counseling when faced with bullying financial issues, dangerous home environments, language barriers, societal problems, etc.) Check out additional resource: The Eight C s of Engagement: How Learning Styles and Instructional Design Increase Students Commitment to Learning by Harvey F. Silver and Matthew J. Perini.