CONNECTIONS: The Educator's ATLAS: Why Engagement Matters
This post was written by Westom Kieschnick (@Wes_Kieschnick), author of our latest release The Educator’s ATLAS: Your Roadmap to Engagement (see more about this awesome book below).
“Engagement” is a word we use constantly in education. All too often, people use the word “engagement” when what they really mean is “fun.” If we’re going to get serious about engagement, we have to abandon the notion that words like ”engagement” and “fun” can be used interchangeably. Fun is something fleeting. It’s a momentary amusement. It’s entertainment. Engagement is something entirely different. It’s far more robust. If kids are engaged, it means they’re curious, they’re participating, and they possess a desire to persevere regardless of the perceived difficulty in the task that lies ahead.
Here’s the hard truth; we aren’t in the business of edutainment, and we aren’t held accountable to fun. We’re held accountable for achievement, and engagement is a prerequisite for achievement. Can engaging classrooms be fun? Most certainly! But the notion that what is fun is also engaging and meaningful, is an oversimplification of our very complex reality.
In recent years, engagement has shown up in every educator conference, every school’s professional development, and every PLN. With good reason. Engagement has an incredible influence on student outcomes—both good and bad. When students are engaged in their learning, it can yield a range of positive benefits. When they’re not engaged? It can be catastrophic.
Let’s start with the bad news first. The Gallup research company routinely surveys cohorts of students to assess their views of school so that educators can understand how to create a more positive learning environment. Since its inception in 2009, the Gallup Student Poll has surveyed 5 million students. In their 2016 poll, taken by nearly one million U.S. students in grades 5 through 12 from 2,940 public schools and 34 private schools, Gallup identified key insights about student disengagement. Relative to their engaged classmates, disengaged students are:
10.0 times more likely to “strongly agree” that they do not do well in school
9.0 times more likely to report that they get poor grades
7.2 times more likely to say they feel “discouraged” about their futures
2.0 times more likely to report having missed a lot of school in the year prior
More likely to state they plan to take a break after high school
Gallup’s research echoes other research about engagement. Education researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Philadelphia Education Fund published findings of their longitudinal analyses of 13,000 students from 1994 to 2006. They were focused on how engagement in middle school impacts urban students’ path to high school graduation. Their research found a correlation between student disengagement and “detaching from school, disconnecting from its norms and expectations, reducing effort and involvement at school, and withdrawing from a commitment to school and to school completion.” The researchers assert that from the middle grades on, a student’s repeated absenteeism, misbehavior, or low effort (and, by inference, lack of willingness to expend high effort) should be taken as clear signs that a student is actively disengaging from school and his or her path to graduation is in peril.
No surprise, then, that there’s a strong link between disengagement and dropping out of school. In a 2012 American Psychological Association review of research on the student dropout problem, five core categories were found to “particularly correlate” with dropout rates: high poverty rates, poor school attendance, poor academic performance, grade retention (i.e., being held back), and, last but not least, disengagement from school. Throughout school, disengagement is a red flag—and an especially alarming one from sixth grade on—that a student might be more likely to drop out. For students in high-poverty areas or for students of color, persistent disengagement should raise immediate concern, as it can practically become a predictor of dropout probability.
On the other side of this dire data are the enormous benefits that can come when students are engaged in school. The same 2016 Gallup Student Poll found that, relative to their disengaged classmates, engaged students are:
2.5 times more likely to get “excellent” grades
2.5 times more likely to “strongly agree” that they perform well in school
4.5 times more likely to feel “hopeful” about their futures
Far more likely to say they plan to attend a four-year college, start their own business, volunteer, or serve some sort of mission upon high school graduation
The strong link between student engagement and achievement has been shown in research for decades and through a variety of lenses on engagement. In an article for NWEA (a non-profit research organization that designs assessment tools), Kathy Dyer, educator and member of the NWEA innovation team, cites research from every decade dating back to the 1960s and through the 1990s that links student engagement to improved learning outcomes. As one example, classroom observations of sixth-grade students in 1968 showed that students who paid more attention in class performed better on standardized tests. In a 1972 study, researchers found a correlation between engagement in academic conversations with classmates and strong performance in school. A 1995 study asked fourth-grade teachers to rate their collective total 1,013 students’ levels of engagement, which was defined as “effort and initiative taking.” Researchers determined that students whose teachers ranked them high on the engagement scale also had better grades from the end of the previous year and higher scores on the Stanford Achievement Test. And in 1997, researchers analyzed the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, which focused on nearly 2,000 low-income minority students in grades 8 through 12. The students who showed engagement through arriving to class on time and prepared for the day, participating in class, and making an effort to complete homework were also more academically successful and more likely to graduate high school on time than their peers who didn’t demonstrate these behaviors.
While Dyer’s reference to engagement research stopped in the 1990s, the research on engagement did not. It continues to this day, and it continues to reveal what I believe can be taken as truth: Engagement is the antidote to students dropping out and failing to meet their potential during and after high school. Disengaged students are more likely to perform poorly in school, misbehave, be chronically absent, and drop out. Engaged students are more likely to perform better on tests and assignments, show up to class prepared, participate in class, interact productively with peers, graduate high school on time, and have a vision for successful plans after high school graduation.
Engagement can make or break student futures. It’s high time we give it the Attention it deserves and Transition to classrooms where Lessons are clear, concise, and flush with meaningful Activities. Then and only then will students be authentically engaged, and the Summation of our work as educators can be fully realized.
Thanks to Weston for the above words of wisdom and thanks so much to all educators reading this for the amazing work you are doing during these challenging times. As always, Teach and Lead with Passion...
Jeff and Jimmy
DAILY INSPIRATION EDUCATOR
(Please let us know about an inspiring educator you think we should highlight in a future newsletter by completing this brief form!)
NEW BOOK!
The Educator’s ATLAS: Your Roadmap to Engagement by Weston Kieschnick (Twitter: @Wes_Kieschnick)
Think back to your most engaging experience as a student. What made it so exhilarating and memorable? What made it so effective?
Such questions about student engagement obsessed Weston Kieschnick from his earliest days as a teacher. Today, Kieschnick travels the globe to keynote and coach educators on the topics most relevant to student success. In the intervening decades, Kieschnick refined his teaching craft, observed the most captivating teachers, and studied the best speakers to reverse engineer a student engagement formula. The result is his ATLAS model—a simple, five-point roadmap for capturing student engagement in the first moments of class sustaining it all the way to the last.
ATLAS holds both learner needs and teacher wisdom in equal importance. Central to this is a definition of student engagement that—once and for all—clarifies the teacher’s actionable role. Teachers will finish this book with a plan in hand and the full confidence that they are ready to be engagement pros. And as is always the case with Kieschnick’s books, readers will laugh and have a lot of fun along the way.
We are so honored to partner with Weston on this important book. This book is now available on Amazon and via our website. Learn more here!
FEATURED BOOK!
Be the Flame: Sparking Positive Classroom Communities by Shane Saeed
Educators know that relationships and rapport are the most important foundational pieces to a successful classroom community. The hard part is knowing how to build those impactful relationships. How do you establish and maintain rapport? What activities can encourage teamwork? How do you continue to build community throughout the school year? In Be the Flame, teacher leader Shane Saeed details ideas and activities that spark positive classroom communities and create learning environments in which students can thrive. Be the Flame focuses on building communities in different areas of an educator’s professional realm:
Kindling rapport with students one-on-one,
Igniting a community among your students,
Catching support from the families of your students,
Fueling relationships with teammates and coworkers, and
Establishing an online community to spread ideas, learn, and grow.
In this book, you’ll learn how to become a “teacher flame” through community-building practices that can be implemented the very next day. From step-by-step directions for relationship building activities to easy-to-implement routines to encourage community and strengthen partnerships, this book is an elementary teacher’s guide to starting their classroom community from the first day of school. Teachers will learn not only how to build relationships with their students, but also with families and coworkers in order to cultivate a cohesive community of support. It takes a village to support students and create a safe space for them to learn and grow. It is our job, as educators, to build strong foundational relationships with students that will inspire them to achieve academically and become the best people they can be. Be the Flame in your classroom and spread your light to impact your students in a positive way!
See what everyone is talking about by checking out Shane’s new book: Learn more here and contact us for bulk order discounts!
CONNECTEDD’S TAKEAWAYS:
Thought for the Day: “If I had my life to live over, I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd have fewer imaginary ones." Don Herold
Teaching Technique to Try: Rapid Fire Writing: Rapid-fire writing is a simple, highly structured way to get students thinking and writing about a topic. This strategy helps students clarify their thoughts by alternating between thinking and writing. It can uncover the thoughts and emotions behind our initial reaction to a piece of content, and it also builds the skill and practice of iteratively reviewing and revising throughout the writing process. This strategy is often helpful in both brainstorming and beginning to narrow the focus for discussion, and it can be used to develop a thesis statement for a formal essay or report. Check out this link from Facing History and Ourselves for a step-by-step process for using this technique.
Eyes On Culture: We believe that culture is a true difference maker in any classroom, school, district, or organization. As a result, we focus much of the work we do on creating and maintaining positive and productive cultures. Culture Focus: Predictability. High performing schools with strong cultures are places in which educators work intentionally to create a “predictable” atmosphere, one in which students and staff come to expect–in a positive way–what will be occurring in the future in terms of calendar events and how things will be handled when there are issues of any kind. Now, please do not misunderstand: these schools are also places of fun and spontaneity, with many surprises 9of the good kind) in store for both students and staff. But when it comes to the day in, day out, running of the school, both kids and adults take comfort in knowing that certain things will be happening and they will be happening in a “predictable” way. This includes the way both students and staff are treated. In “predictable” school cultures, all students and staff are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of the situation. Students and staff can take comfort in knowing that they will not be treated differently one day than a colleague or peer was on a previous day.
What are some other thoughts you have on predictability in classrooms and schools? Please share your thoughts about a culture and gratitude via Twitter: @ConnectEDDBooks We would love to hear from you!