Keeping Students Engaged in the Learning

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #21 – July 25, 2009

We are continuing a discussion of the eleven points to help foster student engagement in the classroom. For a discussion of points 1-6, please go to: http://teaching4achange.blogspot.com
scroll down and read postings # 18-20.

You will see great results daily as you use these two vital elements:
7- Give students plenty of opportunities to practice and share what they know.
8- Frequently monitor progress, providing positive help, guidance and feedback.


7- Give students plenty of opportunities to practice and share what they know.
Mastering a skill or body of knowledge takes time, practice and hard work. Remember when you learned to ride a bike, or skate? It took practice, right? By allowing students authentic practice, we can greatly reduce test anxiety and replace it with confident students who know they will perform well on the assessment they are about to take. A few examples of practicing are:

1.-Students paired up, quizzing each other with flash cards on math facts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.
2.-Students practicing naming the major systems of the human body on a diagram.
3.-Students practicing filling in the names of the states and capitol cities on a blank map.
4. Students practicing cursive handwriting using dotted lines.

Once the students have had numerous opportunities to practice what they are expected to know, the actual exam will be a piece of cake. It’s like giving them several rehearsals before their final performance.

8- Frequently monitor progress, providing positive help, guidance and feedback.
Frequent monitoring gives students benchmarks and lets them know you are expecting great things. It is a scientifically based, but underutilized practice to assess students’ academic performance and evaluate the effectiveness of instruction and instructional interventions.
Used with an individual student or an entire class, progress-monitoring results in more efficiently targeted instructional techniques and goals, which together move students to faster attainment of important state standards of achievement.

Why monitor progress?
We need to know where our students are, in order to truly help them succeed. But that is exactly what we don't know. Try asking a teacher where each of their students is on the reading comprehension indicator "drawing inferences." Which students are proficient? What evidence do they have that those students are proficient? Educators who don't know where their students are do not have enough information to know how best to use their instructional time or which students need specific instructional interventions.

Annual data from the state assessments only gives schools a snapshot of where students are at a single point in time. Daily instruction continues between when the tests are given and when the results are returned to schools. Teachers must know on a day-to-day basis where their students are in relation to the content standards to have the necessary information to inform instruction.

In a 1998 Phi Delta Kappan article entitled, "Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment," authors Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam summarize their review of the research that would help answer the question, “Would improved formative classroom assessments yield higher student achievement as reflected in summative assessments?” They assert, "There is a body of firm evidence that formative assessment is an essential component of classroom work and that its development can raise standards of achievement. We know of no other way of raising standards for which such a strong prima facie case can be made."

What can we do as teachers?
1.-Inform students about specific learning goals, in terms that students understand, from the very beginning of the teaching and learning process.
2.-Use classroom assessments to build students' confidence in themselves as learners and help them take responsibility for their own learning, so as to lay a foundation for lifelong learning.
3.-Translate classroom assessment results into frequent descriptive feedback (versus judgmental feedback) for students, providing them with specific insights as to how to improve. Give lots of kudos and encouragement for progress made.
4.-Continuously adjust instruction based on the results of classroom assessments.
5.-Actively involve students in communicating with their teacher and their families about their achievement status and improvement.

Frequently monitoring progress affords teachers the opportunity to identify students in need of additional or different forms of instruction; they design stronger instructional programs, and their students achieve better. When the correct guidance and instruction are offered, students keep learning and remain confident that they can continue to learn at productive levels. Of equal importance, frequent progress monitoring reminds the students of your high expectations. High expectations without monitoring is saying, “I hope you can do this.” Add monitoring (and let the student in on the progress) and you are saying, “I’m watching you and expect to see you reach the very top.” So, instead of students giving up in frustration, they become engaged learners.

More about student engagement next weekend.