We hear educators, professors, self-proclaimed critics, trustees and anyone with voice in this arena of song singing the chorus that unless we engage students in education we’re going to be preaching to deaf ears. And to engage them we need to create learning contexts that are meaningful, real-world, and 21stcentury, among other things. To be honest, I always thought that this was sort of a truism. Who wouldn’t want to be engaged regardless of the context you find yourself? I clearly remember my high school learning experience and it was less than stellar when it came to student engagement. The difference was I suppose that in that time you didn’t have a choice: listen and learn whether you like it or not! Today’s student is a bit more empowered, and parents have taken on a more active role when addressing the needs of their children in today’s public education system. Technology businesses see the opportunity to inform the educational field that technology will make a difference because, to coin Tapscott’s phrase, the Digital natives are immersed in technology and so in order to meet the student where he or she is at we must also integrate technology across the curriculum. Tuned Out – Engaging the 21stCentury Learner isa book written by Karen Hume that comes hot off the press from Pearson Canada. In this work Hume seeks to clarify what engagement is and is not, both for students and teachers and then proposes a multi-layered approach for initiating, developing and fostering a learning environment that is engaging for both students and teachers. Let’s not forget that teachers can be disengaged as well! Our beliefs and our prior understanding about engagement should be challenged, honed and re-aligned, including my own and Hume’s work is just the right medicine!
Hume’s paradigm for engagement is thoughtful, well-articulated and meaningful. Moreover, Pearson provides a related website that includes the full e-text of the book, as well as opportunities to engage in thoughtful discussionas well as links to further resources. Read on to find out more about Hume’s plan for engaging the 21stcentury learner! Tuned Out is not all about technology. In fact, technology is mixed into the multi-layered approach she proposes to formulating an engaging environment. Karen Hume seeks to create this culture by addressing five key areas of education where teachers can influence student engagement and achievement. The areas are competence, creativity, community, context and challenge. Before Hume moves into these areas she clearly outlines what engagement and disengagement are, with a clear delineation of where we need to go, or what is not known about engagement. I love that Hume engages the reader by giving opportunities to reflect, and find and discover one’s own way through the maze of ideas surrounding engagement, coming up with possible solutions and approaches.
It will be in the process of looking thoughtfully at this area and through opportunities for discussion where you will come to a deeper understanding of the subject matter. This thoughtful engagement will then inform your practice; the fruit of this venture being a more engaged classroom, or workplace. Thankfully Pearson has provided opportunities to do this with the companion site and related discussion opportunities with each chapter of the book. Or, you can use this book to create your own opportunities for discussion whether in a PLC or be gathering together and discussing this topic with thoughtful and interested colleagues.Let me give a quick overview of each of the five areas that are the key ingredients that Hume believes teachers can make a positive difference to student engagement.
These sections are ‘bookended’ by the sections “Seeking” and “Finding”. How apropos! We seek to understand engagement and how to best understand what it is and how we can cultivate and grow it through the 5 alliterated sections – the 5 C’s – and through thoughtful discussion we can begin to find our way through the mosaic of engagement.Competence, creativity, community, context and challenge make up the 5 key ingredients alluded to above. To be engaged we need to feel that we’re competent at what we do, however this competence is not something easily discerned or understood simply because we tend to focus on the 10% of what we see. These ‘competencies’ that we observe are affected by the 90% of what we don’t see including our knowledge, our beliefs and our prior knowledge. According to research if students are to develop academic competence and become engaged in school work they will need the following: a positive, committed connection to an adult who has high expectations, provides appropriate support, feedback and recognition; understanding of a task’s purpose and relevance to their lives; challenging work; autonomy and confidence that they can be successful. These conditions are applicable to most everyone in every context. Teachers need to feel them as well. In fact, at every level of any organization it is vital for someone to feel that they are competent, and according to Hume this does not mean ability.
Creativity is about creative thought. Problem solving involves creative thought. According to noted author and thinker Sir Ken Robinson, “creativity is defined as ‘imaginative processes with outcomes that are original and of value.’” Hume argues that teachers can think creatively about the problem of engagement; we have the ability to develop solutions to disengagement and that in order for us to function in this change environment we need to incorporate flexible, creative thinking. In fact, teachers do it all the time. I would also argue that there is pleasure in activating this creative process; we become more engaged as professionals when given the opportunity, or if we take the time, to wrestle with issues such as disengagement. How can we use a particular technology to facilitate engagement?
Community is more than simply a group of individuals working together under the same roof, or gathered together for the same purpose. Community is a living, thriving group of individuals who can be free to be themselves while committing to the core beliefs of the group. According to Hume community can be developed if the individuals in a group feel that they belong and matter to each other and that they can safely be themselves and have some influence over what happens in the group and if their needs are met if they support the group as a whole. If you don’t feel that you belong to a cohesive group or community then the consequences are somewhat obvious. How can you be engaged if you don’t belong to a group where you feel valued, or where you have a say about the direction of the group?In order to develop an exceptional or ideal classroom or staffroom we need to focus on context. And technology plays a large role in this context simply because the 21stcentury has created a technological context that is advancing at great rates. We can either ignore this present context or use our creative thought processes to engage it and use it. We need not focus on the technology per se but on the change in pedagogy so that we can according to Don Tapscott, “…use technology for a student-focused, customized, collaborative learning environment.” With technology we have tools that can empower us to do things that we’ve never been able to do before, and so in today’s present context we must adapt and change.Challenge is the final piece of the five C’s that Karen Hume uses to focus on that teachers can use to change or influence engagement. The frightening statistic that Hume refers to in her book is that the longer students are in school the less intellectually engaged they become. In fact, from grades 6 onward this spiral is most pronounced.We need to understand that students are engaged by challenge – challenge that coincides with their skill level. In other words, you’re not going to challenge a student with material that is far beyond their ability to interact and learn from that material. If we create the right conditions for challenge and students feel that this challenge meets their skill level than we create flow. Flow is where an individual becomes so engaged by the material that he or she loses track of time; the material has become super engaging!If you haven’t discerned my view on this book already, then let me help you: read it! Read it because it’s comprehensive, thoughtful and engaging. Read it because it will give you some perspective ‘on-all-thingsengagement’. Read it because by doing so you will avoid the pitfalls of becoming disengaged yourself, and finally, read it because it will help you avoid asking the question: “What on earth is going on with today’s students?” And above all get engaged in conversations with others about engagement and use this book as a guide, or starting point. Well done Karen Hume!
Timothy Gard: timothy.gard@tdsb.on.ca
Twitter: soligar
