Remote Learning Insights - Student Engagement

Remote Learning Insights:
Student Engagement

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The Seemingly Unattainable Goal of Student Engagement

Perhaps the most common concern and challenge from the school closures in March was student engagement—both in online sessions and in completing assigned work for “no grade.” Most districts, understandably and justifiably, made attendance for online sessions and submission of work optional. The result was not surprising; many found that students unplugged both figuratively and literally.

Buried within the stories on low student engagement, learning slides, and concerns about losing ground on key aspects of social and emotional learning, however, were stories of students flourishing. One teacher sustained over 80 percent attendance in her daily Zoom meetings with participation from every student online. Another parent expressed gratitude for the growth her daughter experienced through the number of independent projects assigned ranging from engineering design to artistic creation.

Student Engagement Needs a 3-Legged Stool

A closer look at the details of what worked well and what didn’t with respect to building and maintaining student engagement revealed three commonalities.

Student input: Students needed to see their ideas and interests reflected in what they are doing.

Student collaboration: Online sessions involved student collaboration or collaborative activities (such as group discussions) instead of direct instruction.

Student ownership: Students needed to take some level of ownership over their classroom experience—both in-person and online. It needed to be their space for learning and being with their friends, in addition to the school’s/teacher’s space for instruction.

A Golden Opportunity to Explore Student-Directed Instruction

You’ve likely listened to many a 7-year-old’s lengthy description of the intricate workings of a new fairy-land story (ELA), or watched an afternoon fly by with the creation of a new fort and the costumes that go along with it (STEM, art). Most elementary students have an incredible ability to put their all into things that interest them. In fact, this innate capability and creativity is a primary driver in the push to shift classrooms to student-directed, inquiry-based teaching and learning—a strategy many teachers say would help with student motivation and time management if they could harness it.

There is no denying that it takes considerable effort to transition to a more student-directed instructional approach. Moreover, and perhaps somewhat intimidating, is the reality that if we truly want to move to a more student-directed learning classroom, planning among teachers within a grade level, and across a district, will need to change and will be more involved, since no two classrooms are alike. Given the likelihood that schools will need to implement some amount of remote learning in the upcoming school year, this summer just might be the golden opportunity for teachers to work on integrating more student-directed, inquiry-based strategies, and for administrators and parents to support them in their effort.

While this strategy might be a bit harder to implement in middle and high school, where learning very specific content is key, elementary school students are more focused on learning the fundamentals around ELA, math, science, social studies, and art. The cool thing about fundamentals is that they are, well, fundamental, and can be woven into a discussion or an investigation on nearly any topic.

If your students are interested in science—make science topics the subject of writing pieces. Got some sports fans in your class—nothing is more perfectly positioned to be the topic for math instruction. Not sure what your students are interested in—an opened-ended innovation prompt or a simple ME-map are two great ways to get to know what is important to your students.

Make Online Time as Collaborative as Possible

Parents and teachers report that they observed the highest levels of student engagement online when the focus of the session was collaborative in nature. Not only were students participating in the given instructional objective, but they also were interacting with their friends and teacher—which reportedly had positive impacts on their social and emotional well-being and development.

Of course, collaborative does not mean a free-for all, nor does it always have to take the form of a large group discussion. Small group discussion sessions, sharing of assignment responses, working on group projects, and practicing the giving and receiving of productive feedback are all collaborative activities that keep students engaged while promoting learning objectives and social-emotional development.

Make it Their Classroom—Both In-Person and Online

This idea of student ownership is really an extension of the implementation of student-directed instruction. It doesn’t mean that students have total control over what they do or how things are run, more that they have some genuine input. During the school closure, one teacher asked her students to decide who they would like to invite to join their online meetings (they often had folks from the community drop by their classroom). Of course, the teacher still dictated the flow of these meetings, and often there were visitors the students had no say in inviting (the principal or subject specialists), but there were regular visits from special guests the students identified and asked to join them. The result? Students felt an additional responsibility to show up and participate in these sessions because they had extended the invitation.

Another common strategy to transfer some decision-making ownership to students is to let them decide what method they use to demonstrate their knowledge of a given assignment. All too often, students are instructed to prove they understand specific knowledge on a topic, as well as the method in which they must demonstrate it. For example, if students need to demonstrate their understanding on magnetism they could draw a model describing magnets in action, or write a song about magnetism, or describe an application that uses magnetism (e.g., recycling sorting, emergency fire doors, Maglev trains) and clearly discuss how the magnets work, or design and describe a new invention of their own that uses the properties of magnets.

Of course, clear boundaries and expectations that come with ownership (e.g., being respectful of peoples’ time and feelings, following through on your commitments, etc.), must be set at the beginning and reinforced throughout the year. However, as was so succinctly discussed in John Hattie’s book Visible Learning for Teachers, when students are well supported, they have a great ability to rise to the expectations set before them.

Key Take-Aways

Where possible, use your students’ interests and wonderings to frame your lesson strategy—especially for lessons that will have a significant remote learning portion.
As much as possible, use online sessions for collaborative activities instead of direct instruction. If you are in a situation where the bulk of your instruction is remote, try to limit the direct instruction portion of your groups session and use more collaborative strategies to reinforce keep learning objectives.
Make sure your students have some sense of ownership of their classroom—both the physical and the virtual space. It is truly amazing the energy learners—even the very young—will pour into things that they feel a deep connection to.