Focus on one student in the class. (You may want to pick more than one or a pair
of students.) Try to see how much of the
class period that student is actively engaged.
How did you measure this?
Describe directions or activities that engaged the student. Describe
what was happening when that student was not actively engaged in the lesson.
Explain how you will keep your students actively engaged during your lessons as
a science teacher.
I thought it would be informative for me to stretch out Question 4 into more of an inquiry process, since I have a couple of weeks to answer it. I'll be editing it, as I keep my eye on student engagement. I think it will be interesting to try to track students at the three levels to which I have the opportunity to interact: sixth grade, ninth grade, and adult (I don't mind being critical of myself; I'm sure I'll find that I have problems keeping my students captivated the whole time, but the important thing is that I learn how to notice these problems so that I can address them!!). I think it will be interesting to track a student at each level who seems typical, in terms of engagement, and who is even less engaged than his or her peers. It does not make much sense for me to just look at the students whom I already know are captivated by science, with or without a teacher's help.
My prediction to this little investigation is that students of all ages are actively engaged when the classroom is more student-centered (when the students are building a model, doing a lab, working together on collaborative research projects or problems, etc.) but that students are "turned off" when the instructor is doing the requisite administrative stuff or straight lecturing of factual knowledge (if that ever occurs!). Another prediction I have is that the younger the student, the more transitions and different events need to be incorporated into the lesson plan (i.e., the attention spans are shorter, the younger the student). As we talked about in class, I will certainly find that students remain engaged when the pacing is appropriate and they always have something interesting to do.
I have my eye on a couple of students already who seem to have an average engagement level or are even less engaged than their peers. I will focus on the positive (the amount of time a student seems to be engaged with the topic at hand). I will use eye contact (the student's eyes should be on whoever is talking about or doing lab work or model-building for the lesson) and the amount of time a student is doing this type of model-building/lab work/etc. him or herself.
Throughout the next week or two, I will try to take care to be critical of myself, when keeping an eye on my students; I don't just want to say that my students are awesome and always engaged, because I know I just say confusing things to them sometimes that just wastes our time (it makes sense in my head!). I will have a lot to learn from observing the experienced educators differentiate instruction, keep up a good pace, and promote a high level of active engagement for all students!!
Overall, whatever I learn from these students will go towards answering the question, How will I keep my students actively engaged as a science teacher?
March 10 Update: My cooperating teacher uses a couple of strategies that I think are particularly effective to promote student attentiveness. She calls on students randomly by drawing their names out of a coffee container (so that they never know when they will have to provide an answer) and spends most of the class period on group work, so that students are always busy with work that they are motivated to complete (there is social pressure to perform well, they want to get their in-class assignments done so that they can get to their homework, they probably find a lot of the material interesting, etc.).
All of the students seemed to be working hard in the middle of the class period, but both students I observed seemed "turned off" at the beginning of the class. The third period students were coming from a play, however, which is not their normal routine--I always need to talk about a play or movie afterwards, and I've seen a lot of movies and plays by this point (I don't want to seem hypocritical by picking on these kids, who showed me a lot of neat research they were doing today on biomass power plants)!
I also observed some behavior that may give clues to when students are engaged with the material. Students demonstrate their engagement when they:
- make appropriate eye contact (e.g., on the teacher when she is talking)
- raise their hand to volunteer an answer
- make relevant comments in conversation with their group members
Students are not actively demonstrating their engagement when they:
- work on a Google Drive document when the teacher is providing direct instruction
- play with their hair or nails
- doodle or pick at their notebooks (I forgot how endlessly distracting that was to do when I was little...)
I will make more observations, on older students, tomorrow and Thursday, and I will continue to look for positive signs of engagement the week following spring break.
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