About a year ago I wrote a post on Critical Thinking and Student Engagement. In that post, I reviewed some data on student engagement. I don’t know the author of that study (I’ll try to find out), but this is what’s suggested:
- Students in arts and tech classes were more engaged than students in ‘academic’ classes
- Students were more engaged in science than math
- Students were more engaged in math than history
This suggests the following about engagement (which is nothing new to us): For students to be engaged the following three criteria need to be met:
1) Interactivity
2) Concentration
3) Relevance
Interactivity: students need to be doing something hands-on and they should have an opportunity to interact with other students in class
Concentration: it is not enough that students are doing in hands-on activities; their minds must also be engaged.
Relevance: if it is not directly relevant to students’ lives, the chances of students staying engage are lower.
So, this may now explain, why students are least engaged in history classes. Traditionally, we students ‘stuff’ and then we invite them to think. However, it should be the other way around. Students should be first invited to think – the driver needs to be thinking – other ‘stuff’ can be added along the way. In science, this ‘stuff’ is usually theories, laws and basic knowledge and understanding, which so many teachers stress over more important things like applications of this ‘stuff’ to everyday lives.
