Why engage students

As discussed above, students may enter a flow state and experience productive struggle. Challenge students to push their thinking and harness the collective skills of their teams. Instead, take a step back and let students support one another and rise to the rigor of the task. During a fourth-grade math lesson, student teams shared their reasoning with the rest of the class after working on a complex problem. The teams discovered they had arrived at different answers.

Instead of simply confirming which team had the correct answer, the teacher asked students to figure it out. The teams engaged in debate, making connections and applying their mathematical thinking like real mathematicians would. In the end, students found the correct answer, but not all teams solved the problem in the same way. The five strategies above show us why student-driven engagement is so important — learning becomes deeper and more authentic, and students experience the joy of being stretched beyond their limits.

Academic Teaming: Collaborative active learning resource pack. Teacher workshops on student engagement strategies. Abbott-Chapman, J. The longitudinal association of childhood school engagement with adult educational and occupational achievement: Findings from an Australian national study.

British Educational Research Journal. Csikszentmihalyi, M. Finding flow: The psychology of engagement with everyday life.

Basic Books. Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. Dyer, K. Research proof points — Better student engagement improves student learning. EdWeek Research Center. Data snapshot: What teacher and student morale looks like right now. Education Week. Economic Policy Institute. Learning Sciences International. Reckmeyer, M. Focus on student engagement for better academic outcomes. Sousa, D. Engaging the rewired brain.

Toth, M. The power of student teams: Achieving social, emotional, and cognitive learning in every classroom through academic teaming. Vegas, E.

Brookings Institution. Our vision for education is to close the achievement gap. Equip all students with the social, emotional, and cognitive skills they need to thrive in the 21st century. Expand equity by giving every child access to rigorous core instruction that empowers learners to free themselves from generational poverty.

Learn More. But once students become engaged in real-world complex tasks and are eager to reach learning goals for themselves and their teams, it will pay off for the rest of our teaching careers. Michael D. Robert Marzano. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Skip to Main Content. About The Author: Michael D. University Politehnica of Bucharest Address: Spl. Independentei nr.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This website reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Built using WordPress and Mesmerize Theme. Preparing ahead of time will help you delineate a clear focus for the discussion and set well-defined parameters. Passionate disagreement can become disrespectful.

As an instructor, you might work with student writing in a number of ways: short-answer exams, essays, journals, blog posts, research assignments and so on. You may also take your students through the writing process by assigning drafts, encouraging peer response through structured or informal exercises, and using writing to facilitate active learning.

In-classroom technologies — podium-based computers, wireless, real-time response systems e. In a large class, participation can be designed to get students actively solving problems, interacting with one another and the instructor, and processing course material. Office hours give students the opportunity to ask in-depth questions and to explore points of confusion or interest that cannot be fully addressed in class.