Please post your summaries, opinions, and connections to personal experience here: Chapter 13 by Silver and Perini discusses engagement and student commitment to learning. The beginning of the chapter discusses some statistics about students and schools in the United States. One point they hit on is, "Since the mid-to late-1990s, student engagement has become an increasingly important issue among the research community, but teachers have always had engagement near the top of their list of concerns (pg. 319-320)." This I find interesting that engagement among students has been an issue since the late 1990's and now today in the year 2012 we still have not found a tool to promote better student engagement. Of course there are tips and researched theories on engagement but there has not been a solution to the growing problem. The chapter goes on to talk about what engagement means and its definition, as well as, the value of engagement. The eight C's as laid out in chapter 13 do make a lot of sense when discussing student engagement. I think the most important of the eight C's (competition, challenge, curiosity, controversy, choice, creativity, cooperation, and connections) is connections. When talking about students in general they want to know how does this connect to their life? Which after all of these MAT classes it seems like that is a main focus. Connecting across the curriculum for the students. The students are focused on what is going on now, right this minute and normally only in their lives. Connecting their curriculum to something they can grasp could/can promote their engagement in the classroom. I did however find the Mr. Cogito's blueprint to be sort of confusing with the two columns and each day. But, I did like how at the end of the chapter they summarized the three good points Mr. Cogito used in his blueprint. Overall, I think this chapter was very important in my understanding of student engagement in the classroom. -AK
I totally agree with Ashley in that the base of engagement must begin with connection. In my practicums, I have learned little things about a great deal of the students in my VA/US History class. I know some like to hunt, and I know some play sports. In some of my activities and lectures, I will try to "hook" the students by playing into these interests. The chapter capped these 8 "C"s nicely. I really enjoyed the section involving Controversy. As a History teacher, I will come into contact with many areas of History that may be deemed as boring by some of the students. Controversy thrives in History. I am excited in some aspects to play a devil's advocate on some of these issues to serve as a vehicle to success and engagement. Page 330 served me the most usefully. The "blueprints" as they are called in the chapter outline what a lesson should contain in order to capture and retain engagement. Knowledge anticipation serves as the hook, in which, as a History teacher, a hook is a very useful tool, especially if the days planning involves an aspect less than exciting. Knowledge acquisition determines the sense students make out of texts and lectures. As a History teacher, I want to engage the students with primary documents and then have a review of secondary literature. The goal of this engagement strategy is for the student to question an aspect or key figure in History. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings can be tied into this nicely, in that many many secondary publications have outlined the relationship. However, when reading Jefferson's writings, the reader can discuss what Jefferson actually said versus what an author interpreted. Practice and Process can be made possible by creative planning and exercises. As of this semester, I am a huge fan of both thinking maps, and WebQuests. As most students are avidly engaged by technology in their homes and the 185 days a year outside of the class, according to the author, WebQuests can send the student on an engaged journey into the past, for History classes. WebQuests have been deemed as a very useful tool to instill mastery of a certain aspect of a discipline. Going hand in hand with the WebQuests, application can lead to a presentation in which the student or group can serve as peer educators to the class. Because the students are leading the presentation, engagement will be at a higher level by the class because of the peer process. Lastly, reflection affords the student the opportunity to marvel at what has been achieved. This could be in the form of presentation and application for a merit of sorts. In addition, all five aspects of the "blueprint" appear to give rise to assessment via the suggested rubric on page 323. However, I feel that engagement begins with the teacher and ends with the teacher. Teachers must be passionate about their content and in turn, passionate about their students. These two qualities appear to be most of the battle. The passionate teacher will always find ways to engage the student. - JHC
I agree with Silver and Perini that engagement is difficult to define, because many people describe it differently. I personally feel that student are engaged in different ways, especially at different levels. I am constantly thinking about how I can make my student more active in their learning other than just taking notes and doing the surface work, i.e. enough to get an "A." Designing lessons to strengthen commitment to learning as Silver and Perini suggest is all well and good, but it is difficult to accomplish for the multifaceted student body that teachers deal with daily. The break down in this chapter of the types of learners into four categories is quite useful, as I read them I was already categorizing my students. The "eight C's" discussed in this chapter may seem obvious, but when you are teaching and writing lesson plans you can feel overwhelmed by the task at hand and have a difficult time picking engaging tasks. If you just consider the "C's," they will help you implement engagement into routine activities at the very least. These go hand-in-hand with the blueprint that truly help breakdown lesson/unit planning for teachers. It seems that if you follow the authors advice to increase engagement, it would be nearly impossible to fail as seen in Mr. Cogito's lessons. It is good to see in the author's example of how the teacher broke down the blue print into several days, not just one lesson necessarily while intermixing the "eight C's"It is also beneficial to see the flow of the lessons involve different teaching/learning styles that will inevitably result in more engagement from his students. I found this chapter very helpful and well written/easy to understand and see the benefits.--Helen Phillips
I agree with Helen that students can be engaged at different levels. I find it very difficult sometimes to ensure that each and every one of my students is engaged in some sort of way, because we all get so caught up in teaching the material and making sure that our students know the information necessary for the SOLs (another side effect of NCLB I guess). I like the Eight C's that Perini and Silver lay out in their chapter. I especially like competition, curiousity, and challenge. For reviewing test content, I always try to engange my students in friendly competition. It gets them "engaged" in the way that Silver and Perini compare it to commitment. My students get so involved in the competition that they are commited to knowing the information because they want that positive evaluation at the end. On page 340, they mention "commitment is reciprocal". I could not agree more. If we as teachers show commitment to our studnets, then our students will show commitment to us; just like respect. Though many of our students may be hiding their commitment behind goofing off and disrupting class, all in all they are commited to doing the work assigned because we are committed to teaching them the information and guiding them along the way. I am constantly thinking of ways to incorporate engaging activities into my lesson plans, and I even find myself writing ideas down on napkins in restaraunts just so I wont forget a great concept. As we develop as teachers, our students are developing as intellectuals, and we need to keep their active minds engaged so that they can succeed. - Caitlin Unterman
This morning I met with another professor in our program--she is trying out a new evaluation program in development at UVA on me during one of my observations, and it involves a preliminary meeting--and one question on the evaluation form was "How do you account for different learning styles?" (or something to that effect). I said, point-blank, that I had not done a lot of that. My lesson involves a great deal of discussion, some controversies, role-playing, etc, but I was still thinking of learning styles as "I like to read, I like to listen, I like to move around, etc." Having now done the reading, I feel better about my lesson plan again, but I also have really had to re-evaluate my own concept of learning. The eight Cs and the focus on student engagement as opposed to student preference for certain tasks (like reading as opposed to drawing) suggest that it's not what students have to do but how they do it and in what structures and environments they complete the work. What I found most promising--and, as a pre-service teacher, quite brave--about Mr Cogito's lesson was how it wholly depended on student engagement. If a class declined to participate, the activities would fall apart--.if the students did not get behind the puzzle of determining the topic from the vocabulary, the hook would not work. Similarly, if the students did not actively engage with the concept sort later on in the week, there would be very little learning. So because of the high stakes, the activities are all very respectful of the students. They are challenged via competition and comparison to improve their vocabulary, but on the first day, the homework is not to go home and write out definitions--the task is to think about the opportunity for learning. The vocabulary will come later on, in respectful and authentic ways, not through exercises that may force students to learn but don't engage them with the material. I appreciated the authors' formatting decisions, because by having the two columns, I could easily get familliar with working examples of integrating the eight Cs into the classroom. To my surprise, I realized my existing lesson does account for different engagement styles--I start with a seemingly off-topic comedy hook from Monty Python, which is curiosity, will be intentionally bringing up the War on Terror/The War in Afghanistan to compare with the Trojan War (controversy), will have students make epic hero comparisons with comic book heros (connections), and will have them working in groups (cooperations) to discuss various scenarios. By spelling that out for me, the authors reassured me that this is easily integrated and instead of being one more thing to include--as much as I love essential questions, I did slightly begrudge them space on my already overcrowded planning--the eight Cs are a tool to IMPROVE my lessons and make my classroom more engaging, both for the students and for myself, as I'm now much more comfortable discussing and improving their engagement.
Chapter 13 by Silver and Perini discusses engagement and student commitment to learning. The beginning of the chapter discusses some statistics about students and schools in the United States. One point they hit on is, "Since the mid-to late-1990s, student engagement has become an increasingly important issue among the research community, but teachers have always had engagement near the top of their list of concerns (pg. 319-320)." This I find interesting that engagement among students has been an issue since the late 1990's and now today in the year 2012 we still have not found a tool to promote better student engagement. Of course there are tips and researched theories on engagement but there has not been a solution to the growing problem. The chapter goes on to talk about what engagement means and its definition, as well as, the value of engagement. The eight C's as laid out in chapter 13 do make a lot of sense when discussing student engagement. I think the most important of the eight C's (competition, challenge, curiosity, controversy, choice, creativity, cooperation, and connections) is connections. When talking about students in general they want to know how does this connect to their life? Which after all of these MAT classes it seems like that is a main focus. Connecting across the curriculum for the students. The students are focused on what is going on now, right this minute and normally only in their lives. Connecting their curriculum to something they can grasp could/can promote their engagement in the classroom. I did however find the Mr. Cogito's blueprint to be sort of confusing with the two columns and each day. But, I did like how at the end of the chapter they summarized the three good points Mr. Cogito used in his blueprint. Overall, I think this chapter was very important in my understanding of student engagement in the classroom. -AK
I totally agree with Ashley in that the base of engagement must begin with connection. In my practicums, I have learned little things about a great deal of the students in my VA/US History class. I know some like to hunt, and I know some play sports. In some of my activities and lectures, I will try to "hook" the students by playing into these interests. The chapter capped these 8 "C"s nicely. I really enjoyed the section involving Controversy. As a History teacher, I will come into contact with many areas of History that may be deemed as boring by some of the students. Controversy thrives in History. I am excited in some aspects to play a devil's advocate on some of these issues to serve as a vehicle to success and engagement. Page 330 served me the most usefully. The "blueprints" as they are called in the chapter outline what a lesson should contain in order to capture and retain engagement. Knowledge anticipation serves as the hook, in which, as a History teacher, a hook is a very useful tool, especially if the days planning involves an aspect less than exciting. Knowledge acquisition determines the sense students make out of texts and lectures. As a History teacher, I want to engage the students with primary documents and then have a review of secondary literature. The goal of this engagement strategy is for the student to question an aspect or key figure in History. Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings can be tied into this nicely, in that many many secondary publications have outlined the relationship. However, when reading Jefferson's writings, the reader can discuss what Jefferson actually said versus what an author interpreted. Practice and Process can be made possible by creative planning and exercises. As of this semester, I am a huge fan of both thinking maps, and WebQuests. As most students are avidly engaged by technology in their homes and the 185 days a year outside of the class, according to the author, WebQuests can send the student on an engaged journey into the past, for History classes. WebQuests have been deemed as a very useful tool to instill mastery of a certain aspect of a discipline. Going hand in hand with the WebQuests, application can lead to a presentation in which the student or group can serve as peer educators to the class. Because the students are leading the presentation, engagement will be at a higher level by the class because of the peer process. Lastly, reflection affords the student the opportunity to marvel at what has been achieved. This could be in the form of presentation and application for a merit of sorts. In addition, all five aspects of the "blueprint" appear to give rise to assessment via the suggested rubric on page 323. However, I feel that engagement begins with the teacher and ends with the teacher. Teachers must be passionate about their content and in turn, passionate about their students. These two qualities appear to be most of the battle. The passionate teacher will always find ways to engage the student. - JHC
I agree with Silver and Perini that engagement is difficult to define, because many people describe it differently. I personally feel that student are engaged in different ways, especially at different levels. I am constantly thinking about how I can make my student more active in their learning other than just taking notes and doing the surface work, i.e. enough to get an "A." Designing lessons to strengthen commitment to learning as Silver and Perini suggest is all well and good, but it is difficult to accomplish for the multifaceted student body that teachers deal with daily. The break down in this chapter of the types of learners into four categories is quite useful, as I read them I was already categorizing my students. The "eight C's" discussed in this chapter may seem obvious, but when you are teaching and writing lesson plans you can feel overwhelmed by the task at hand and have a difficult time picking engaging tasks. If you just consider the "C's," they will help you implement engagement into routine activities at the very least. These go hand-in-hand with the blueprint that truly help breakdown lesson/unit planning for teachers. It seems that if you follow the authors advice to increase engagement, it would be nearly impossible to fail as seen in Mr. Cogito's lessons. It is good to see in the author's example of how the teacher broke down the blue print into several days, not just one lesson necessarily while intermixing the "eight C's"It is also beneficial to see the flow of the lessons involve different teaching/learning styles that will inevitably result in more engagement from his students. I found this chapter very helpful and well written/easy to understand and see the benefits.--Helen Phillips
I agree with Helen that students can be engaged at different levels. I find it very difficult sometimes to ensure that each and every one of my students is engaged in some sort of way, because we all get so caught up in teaching the material and making sure that our students know the information necessary for the SOLs (another side effect of NCLB I guess). I like the Eight C's that Perini and Silver lay out in their chapter. I especially like competition, curiousity, and challenge. For reviewing test content, I always try to engange my students in friendly competition. It gets them "engaged" in the way that Silver and Perini compare it to commitment. My students get so involved in the competition that they are commited to knowing the information because they want that positive evaluation at the end. On page 340, they mention "commitment is reciprocal". I could not agree more. If we as teachers show commitment to our studnets, then our students will show commitment to us; just like respect. Though many of our students may be hiding their commitment behind goofing off and disrupting class, all in all they are commited to doing the work assigned because we are committed to teaching them the information and guiding them along the way. I am constantly thinking of ways to incorporate engaging activities into my lesson plans, and I even find myself writing ideas down on napkins in restaraunts just so I wont forget a great concept. As we develop as teachers, our students are developing as intellectuals, and we need to keep their active minds engaged so that they can succeed. - Caitlin Unterman
This morning I met with another professor in our program--she is trying out a new evaluation program in development at UVA on me during one of my observations, and it involves a preliminary meeting--and one question on the evaluation form was "How do you account for different learning styles?" (or something to that effect). I said, point-blank, that I had not done a lot of that. My lesson involves a great deal of discussion, some controversies, role-playing, etc, but I was still thinking of learning styles as "I like to read, I like to listen, I like to move around, etc." Having now done the reading, I feel better about my lesson plan again, but I also have really had to re-evaluate my own concept of learning. The eight Cs and the focus on student engagement as opposed to student preference for certain tasks (like reading as opposed to drawing) suggest that it's not what students have to do but how they do it and in what structures and environments they complete the work. What I found most promising--and, as a pre-service teacher, quite brave--about Mr Cogito's lesson was how it wholly depended on student engagement. If a class declined to participate, the activities would fall apart--.if the students did not get behind the puzzle of determining the topic from the vocabulary, the hook would not work. Similarly, if the students did not actively engage with the concept sort later on in the week, there would be very little learning. So because of the high stakes, the activities are all very respectful of the students. They are challenged via competition and comparison to improve their vocabulary, but on the first day, the homework is not to go home and write out definitions--the task is to think about the opportunity for learning. The vocabulary will come later on, in respectful and authentic ways, not through exercises that may force students to learn but don't engage them with the material. I appreciated the authors' formatting decisions, because by having the two columns, I could easily get familliar with working examples of integrating the eight Cs into the classroom. To my surprise, I realized my existing lesson does account for different engagement styles--I start with a seemingly off-topic comedy hook from Monty Python, which is curiosity, will be intentionally bringing up the War on Terror/The War in Afghanistan to compare with the Trojan War (controversy), will have students make epic hero comparisons with comic book heros (connections), and will have them working in groups (cooperations) to discuss various scenarios. By spelling that out for me, the authors reassured me that this is easily integrated and instead of being one more thing to include--as much as I love essential questions, I did slightly begrudge them space on my already overcrowded planning--the eight Cs are a tool to IMPROVE my lessons and make my classroom more engaging, both for the students and for myself, as I'm now much more comfortable discussing and improving their engagement.