Engagement

"I had discovered that learning something,

no matter how complex,

wasn't hard when I had a reason

to want to know it."

- Homer Hickam

Today at lunchtime, I was talking with a colleague. We shared some of our experiences as educators for the same school district. Both of us work with elementary students and have observed the same problem, disengagement. It is very common to hear -I don’t like school, or school is boring -especially for students above second grade. So, she asked me how we could help them. I began to share some ideas that I have learned from this program. I suggested that we need to focus on teaching methods that create challenging learning tasks and give the students roles, responsibilities, and collaborative structures to engage them in these tasks with their peers. I am convinced that engagement comes from peer interaction and the challenge of the tasks rather than just interacting with the teacher. Every day, I tried to apply COVA principal in small tasks. I don’t have the authority to make big changes in my school, but whenever I have autonomy I do bit innovations.

Harapnuik, D. K., Thibodeaux, T. N., & Cummings, C. D. (2018). Choice, Ownership, and Voice through Authentic Learning Opportunities. http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=7291

www.rite.edu

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.F3ORP6C5vhUGTLZM