For over the years, student engagement has been focused on improving student performance, create positive behaviour and at the same time create a feeling of belongingness to ensure that they complete schooling. The primary focus was the high school completion, but in the recent years, research has shown that learners engagement seem to target the students in the high school and in the middle school where studies have established that disengagement has become a major area of concern. Further, student engagement has also been implemented as a means to manage the overall classroom behaviour. In the contemporary society, student engagement has been developed around the prospective objective to enhance the student’s capability in learning. The literature review will focus on techniques that a teacher can use to increase learners engagement within a classroom setting.
The Promise of Learner Engagement
Student engagement is one of the richest research areas. It is critical for the educators to comprehend and put into effective application approaches to support learners’ engagement in the classroom (Dunleavy & Milton, 2009). Failure to engage the students has been reported to bring about numerous negative consequences. Some of the educationists have asserted that engaging disengaged pupils is the biggest challenge that most educators are currently experiencing where about 66 percent of the students are disengaged (Cothran & Ennis, 2000). Arguably, students live in a different world that engages them in a different way than the world experienced by their parents. Therefore, students have tried to respond to this world, and in the process, they have changed rapidly in response to their engagement in a society rich in technology. The manner in which the school will respond is very critical to the success of every student. One of the primary challenges is for the students to leave schools unprepared for a productive live in the society. Failure to transforms the curriculum, the assessment strategy and even the pedagogy then the students might not be successful, and this will affect their future (Cothran, & Ennis, 2000). With technological advancement, students have changed significantly; hence they seem to have unique goals and needs in addition to learning preferences (Cothran & Ennis, 2000). In making sure that they are successful, the student voices must be heard in the literature focusing on student engagement. Further, faculty members have seen the need to increase the amount of group discussion and shorten the lectures. Transformation in education and pedagogy today is felt from Kindergarten to the post-secondary to ensure that they address the needs of the digital children who have found themselves in a different culture (Dunleavy & Milton, 2009).
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Common elements
When one goes through various literatures for the effective strategies that would improve student engagement in the classroom, typical patterns of practices are evident and have often been recommended. According to Deschaine & Whale, (2017), he believes that to engage the students; there is the need for the new educational curriculum to integrate the level of interaction, relevancy, instruction and even exploration. There is the need to develop an interaction that is founded on respect to attaining student engagement (Dunleavy & Milton, 2009). It is evident that today, the students have become highly social hence spend most of their time interacting with other learners. The millennial students often prefer interacting with other people beyond the school setting. A stronger relationship with teachers and community has further been pointed to be critical to improving their level of engagement locally, nationally and even globally (Oblinger, Oblinger & Lippincott, 2005).
Students would further wish their teachers to develop a conducive learning environment that would facilitate interdependent relationships which would promote a culture of learning. Three criteria have emerged as the most preferred among learners to improve student engagement including learning from each other, connect with teachers and experts and opportunity to engage in intense dialogue beyond the classroom setting (Deschaine & Whale, 2017). The teaching has to be highly interactive and explorative among the teachers and learners, and teachers should model learning rather than focusing on process, outcome or even answers. For a student to be engaged in learning, he or she must be able to develop an effective social interaction.
An effective classroom practice that helps to engage students are inquiry based and exploratory in nature (Deschaine & Whale, 2017). Most students prefer to explore and find the solutions to certain problems on their own. The desire to explore can be said to be founded on the willingness to learn. The social media has provided various strategies for learning including Facebook and Linked In which is highly engaging than sitting in class. Relevancy has further been established as an essential element for engaging learners. It is critical to ensure that the student’s learning effectively applies to their real-life scenarios rather than being entirely theoretical (Harris, 2008). Therefore, when a student’s works with the community issues then it will follow that they will become highly engaged hence building a greater sense of purposes for a learning experience. The teachers must ensure that all the works that the students are to complete are authentic and relevant.
Multimedia and Technology
Technology always plays a vital role for the students to move past their classroom to interact and communicate with the rest of the students, teachers and experts globally. Technology has brought learners together providing them with diverse opportunities to access vital information and experts resulting in an engaged learning (Deschaine & Whale, 2017). The new tools have played a greater role in expanding learning to deeper research and at the same time build the stronger relationship with other learners. Some of the technologies that have frequently been used to achieve engaged learning include YouTube, WebQuests and blogs. Such technologies would help the students to incorporate technology into their autonomous learning and at the same time ensure there is time for critical thinking skills. For those students using cell phones, they have been shown to improve their level of engagement by about 78 percent.
According to Dunleavy & Milton, (2009), technology and multimedia have further been shown to be highly helpful regarding engaging learners by introducing them to various subjects, control learning and exploring different ways to present their findings effectively. According to Deschaine & Whale, (2017), teachers have further reported that technology has the potential to improve student engagement where it facilitates the development of cognitive, academic and social engagement. Technology further enhances student’s responsibility for learning, utilisation of resources efficiently and time management (Harris, 2008). The use of technology, therefore, motivates the students to learn, take their learning ownership and allow them to apply the acquired skills to real-life situations.
Engaging and Challenging Instruction
Engaging curriculum and pedagogy have the potential of encouraging student engagement. Therefore, to engage the students, it is critical to change how teachers teach students for instance through shifting from didactic to constructivist pedagogy. The adoption of the constructivist instructions would demand a respectful relationship in addition to a safer learning setting particularly when the relationship shifts to collaborative learning. The students would be equipped with the ability to control their work (Deschaine & Whale, 2017). It is important to establish a safer environment for the student to speak up engage in learning and even challenge teachers. In addition to this, to expand student’s capacity to learn, there might be the need to establish a setting and culture that the feeling of both entitlement and enfranchisement are strengthened rather than weakened or ignored.
The students would also need to learn an interpersonal skill to respectful engage in a dialogue constructively and at the same time learn the primary content of the subject.
Adult engagement topic has continued to be a major area of interest among the practitioners and researchers. Issues related to the online instructions have made it more enjoyable (Dunleavy & Milton, 2009). In order to meet the moral obligation of offering a practical instruction, the others have examined the instructional behaviour in addition to online instructional delivery of the content. Identifying and addressing potential gaps in the literature about focusing on the student interaction’s nature within the learning environment can significantly influence the level of engagement among students (Dunleavy & Milton, 2009).
Conclusion
Based on the paper, student engagement plays a critical role in improving student’s performance. Based on the literature review, it is clear that educators and educationists have a greater role to play in creating a positive environment and culture that would encourage student engagement. The essay has critically evaluated five articles relevant to the study analysing how different authors have approached the issue of student engagement. It is clear that an embedded collaboration, engaging and challenging instruction, making learning relevant to real life and an integrated technology play a greater role in achieving student engagement. There is the need to change the modern teaching, especially when dealing with the millennial generation taking into consideration technological advancement. These changes are highly promising to engage the student.
References
Cothran, D. J., & Ennis, C. D. (2000). Building bridges to student engagement: Communicating respect and care for students in urban high schools. Journal of Research & Development in Education .
Deschaine, M., & Whale, D. (2017). Increasing Student Engagement in Online Educational Leadership Courses. Journal of Educators Online , 14 (1).
Dunleavy, J., & Milton, P. (2009). What did you do in school today? Exploring the concept of student engagement and its implications for teaching and learning in Canada. Toronto: Canadian Education Association (CEA) .
Harris, L. R. (2008). A phenomenographic investigation of teacher conceptions of student engagement in learning. The Australian Educational Researcher , 35 (1), 57-79.
Oblinger, D., Oblinger, J. L., & Lippincott, J. K. (2005). Educating the net generation . Boulder, Colo.: EDUCAUSE, c2005. 1 v.(various pagings): illustrations..
