Student Engagement

As discussed in the article How to Keep Kids Engaged in Class by Tristan de Frondeville, student engagement is such an important role of our professional careers. If the students aren't engaged, they're not learning. If they're not learning, we're not doing our jobs. Though some students can suffice on learning through linguistics (reading, writing, lectures)...many struggle in this atmosphere and are bursting at the seams for something that their minds can grasp and hold tight to. I have chosen to focus on student engagement (rather than questioning) due to the fact that questioning can be a form of student engagement, but is not all inclusive as such. Student engagement is more of an umbrella to the many ways that we can keep our students focused and on task in pursuit of becoming a life long learner. I have also chosen student engagement due to the fact that I know that I need more work in this area. I see the benefits of it and want to make it a priority in my classroom.

Student engagement relates (or lack there of) to my work in the form of our school's curriculum. I struggle to engage my students in the scripted programs that I am forced to teach. We use a scripted program called Direct Instruction for our reading development which is taught in kindergarten for 70 minutes and first and second grade for 100 minutes a day. While it has been deemed successful at the lower level grades, it seems to produce a generation of students who HATE reading. The reason behind this is clear: the students sit in rows and repeat what I say to them. They all answer simultaneously on cue. They read out loud together. When one misreads a word, they simultaneously correct it. It's almost scary how in sync every student is. However, I can teach it in my sleep, and they can do it in their sleep. They might be reading at the end of the year, but they don't enjoy reading at the end of the year. I have tried to spice up reading in other avenues of academics, and they love that but they do not associate it with D.I. and then struggle to transfer D.I. knowledge into other areas to aide them in reading. My students find D.I. to be boring (as do I) and thus there is 70 minutes of teaching time that I have lost. As mentioned in the blog Teaching- Keeping the Classroom Exciting, I want my students to be excited about reading. By being able to use student engagement, my students could not only be reading and comprehending...but more importantly, they could fall in love with reading and all that it has to offer.

The video that I viewed pertaining to student engagement was called Five Year Old's Pilot Their Own Project Learning on edutopia.org. A main point that was brought up in the video is how important authentic purposes are to students. With authentic purposes, students are able to apply their learning to everyday situations or areas that interest them. I have always felt that the best way to learn is when you don't realize you're learning at all. When you are so completely absorbed in the product or end result, that you don't realize all of the knowledge that your brain is soaking up. Authentic purposes provide this for students of every type of background. This is one avenue that I would like to further navigate in my classroom. Sometimes I get so caught up in the curriculum, that I don't stop to think about how I can authenticate it for my students. By creating authentic purposes, not only am I taking my students interests seriously and pertaining it to the material, but I am opening up a way for my students to grasp the curriculum on their own terms.

In order to fit student engagement and authentic purposes into my inquiry plan, I need to do more research. I also need to take what I have learned through this module and begin utilizing it in my classroom immediately. By experimenting in this area I will have a better understanding of what my strengths and weaknesses truly are.