Promoting Engagement

1. Promoting Engagement For Area 6 Students

2. Scientific discovery Gossip Puzzles Space exploration Spectator Sports Murder Mysteries Supernatural elements What do these have in common? Why did Eve eat the apple?Why did Pandora open the box?

3. Six Components of Student Engagement Choice Competency Collaboration Student Engagement Curiosity Creativity Technology

4. Essential Question: • How do effective teachers promote student engagement through curiosity (and collaboration) ?

5. Thoughts about Curiosity • “Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.” ~~Vladimir Nabokov • “Curiosity is the thing. If you don’t give life to curiosity, you haven’t done your job.” ~~Carlos Picon • “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” ~~Einstein

6. Curiosity and JJ Abrams On July 3, 2007, a robo-nutty nation showed up for the opening weekend of Transformers and beheld a teaser for an untitled mystery movie in which a going-away party for a marketing exec who's headed to Tokyo is interrupted by tremors and an ominous roar. The revelers rush up to the roof and see fiery projectiles arcing through the sky. Then they go out onto the street and are nearly bowled over by the head of the Statue of Liberty. The end. For a lot of filmgoers, the ensuing buzz storm--further fed by cryptic, clue-packed websites, a poster of a monster-ravaged skyline, and little comment from Camp Abrams--nearly upstaged the summer movie season itself. What was that thing?

7. Curiosity • Defined as mystery, discovering for yourself, seeking new experiences, and the need for understanding. • Leads to exploration and anxiety Silver, Strong, and Robinson (1995) Borowske (2005)

8. Other Key Elements for Classrooms • Teachers must express and model curiosity in the subject • Mind the Gap • Too overwhelming • Too easy • Real connections between students’ lives and the course material

9. Categories to Spark Curiosity • Activators • Content • Summarization • Extending and refining • Assessment

10. Activators These activities and activators “spark” the interest or “hook” the learner. They cause the learner to have a need for understanding. Mystery box or bag

11. Content “Sometimes questions are more important than answers.” ~~Nancy Willard

12. Question Types Open Questions Closed Questions

13. Question Strategies • Q Matrix • Question Maker • The Tourist in Trouble • Question Levels • Parking Lot

14. Wait time • What is the average teacher’s wait time? • Less thantwo seconds! • What is the average number of questions per 60 minute class? • Forty-seven • Could we have one minute, five minute, ten minute questions? • Can we be conscious about wait time?

15. Does anyone have questions? • The key is the attitude of the teacher toward student questions. • Student inquiry must be greeted with enthusiasm, a commitment of time, and an unthreatening manner. • As students begin to receive the rewards of asking questions, the phenomenon will occur with increased frequency and quality.

16. Summarizing How can students have curiosity stimulated through stating what they have learned? Super Sleuth Word Sort

17. Super Sleuth Directions: • Walk around the room and find someone who can respond to one of the statements below. After responding verbally to your question, the person should initial within the square. • A person can only answer and initial one square on your card. Feel free to discuss the answer too. • The goals of Super Sleuth are to utilize participant’s knowledge and to communicate ideas with new people.

18. Super Sleuth

19. Word Sorts

20. Extending and Refining • Error Analysis • Deduction

21. Error Analysis • Finding mistakes in a process or a product requires higher level thinking. • Students must learn to evaluate and critique. • Every content area can use this strategy.

22. Error Analysis • Math: mistakes in a problem or an incorrect answer to the problem • English: grammar, research documentation, composition structure • Social Studies: people and places, timeline of events, cause and effect • Science: lab data and conclusions, physics and chem problems, terms and ideas

23. Error Analysis • BT: accounting errors, web design errors, marketing/advertising mistakes, etc. • CT: engine problems, construction deficiencies, design flaws, etc. • PE: rules and procedures • FA: notes, progressions, monologues, etc. • ML: sentence and vocabulary mistakes, conversations, etc.

24. Deduction-versus-Induction • Science-versus-English • Prosecuting Attorney-versus-Defense Attorney • Sometimes need to teach the thinking skill before using it with specific content

25. How to Use Deductive Reasoning • English: provide theme, and students find evidence in literary work • Math: provide answer, and students develop problem that produced answer • SS: provide event/outcome, and students must locate conditions and supporting details for that event • Science: provide conclusive lab data, and ask students determine how conclusion was reached

26. Assessment • Student-directed Research Projects • Investigations • Real-world tasks • Peer Assessment

27. Final Thoughts • Are you curious? • Evals “Curiosity is the very basis of education, and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only that the cat died nobly.” ~~Arnold Edinborough