Before we get to greet our students our district gives us 3 days to prepare for the year. Two of those days are dedicated to professional development, one within our school and one for the entire district. The district I work for collaborates with two other districts that serve our region and the Northwest Regional Learning Consortium to provide teachers with a variety of sessions to choose from for all three of the district PD days during the school year. Thursday was our district day and I participated in the first of a three part series on student engagement presented by Roland Case, co-founder of the Critical Thinking Consortium.
I have been on leave for the past year so this was a great way to get my brain thinking about the goals I want to have for the year and how I will achieve them. There are parts of my teaching that I have been wanting to improve and after today I see these areas more clearly. I know where to start and what to focus on.
Educational engagement occurs when an individual is personally committed to pursuing the educational goals and successfully performing the ongoing task. There are several levels of engagement starting with level 0) Not Engaged (non-compliance), I) Compliant (external rewards or exemptions), II) Interested (tasks are enjoyable), III) Valued (there is a personal importance or relevance), IV) Challenged (caught up in challenging tasks that are meaningful and appropriate) and finally, V) Transformed (effects of work extend to other aspects of their personal and professional lives).
We were asked to rate what percentage of our students are normally at each of the levels and generally I think that 80% of my students are Interested most of the time. Occasionally, depending on the topic and task, I get students who are at the Valued level, but rarely are they at a higher level than that. I can recall one instance where a student was at the transformed level - we were learning about DNA in grade 9 science and after a mating of fictitious creatures activity (Reebops) she became very interested in learning more about heredity and the characteristics of potential mates so that she could eventually have children who had desirable characteristics. After this realization about the general level of engagement of students in my class I know that one goal I have is to raise that level so that at least 80% of students are at the Valued level most of the time.
This new goal will be front and centre when I am planning activities in my science classes. To achieve this goal I will need to ensure that students are not just completing activities because they are getting a mark or because the activity is fun. I will have to purposefully create activities that have some meaning and personal relevance. To begin this process I will use some of the strategies that Roland Case introduced in the session.
I have committed to reduce off-putting tasks and eliminate marginal topics. For example, at the junior high level I do not believe that students should be required to write a formal lab report every time we do an experiment. The scientific process is important, but not the report. One of the things that I am going to change is that students can choose from other methods to communicate the results of the experiment. Topics that students are not as interested in can be discussed more quickly than those that they are enjoying and finding relevance and usefulness in their lives.
Another commitment I have made is to provide more compelling learning opportunities by including real life consequences and problems in my lessons. I find this to be the most challenging commitment. I do not really consider myself to be a very creative person and struggle to come up with ideas that are challenging to students. To do this I will need to practice making better questions for students to consider and I will need to collaborate with the other science teachers in my school. Hopefully we can find time to do this.
In an interview with Roland Case about how much time teachers have to cover content in their classes he poses the question "What are we currently doing if we cover it in the time we have but it isn't uncovered in a significant way?" This is something I will need to remember. Is there a point to teaching it if the students are not going to care about it and find meaning in it? How much are they retaining if they do not have a connection to the content or process?
No comments:
Post a Comment