Researching, Teaching and Learning 2 - 102097

Chris Tierney - 15893424

Second Half - 2017

Student engagement is a constant battle for teachers and schools in the classroom. Teachers
must be constantly aware of their classroom environment to ensure all students are captivated
by their lesson. Schools need to work alongside teachers to form a successful partnership in
fostering engagement and academic success. In a study conducted from 2006 to 2009, 65% of
students indicated they were bored in class (Yazzie-Mintz, 2009). Rumburger (2011) and
Bridgeland, Dilulio & Morrison (2006) reached a similar conclusion that disengagement in the
classroom contributes a students decision to drop out. On the opposite end of the spectrum,
higher levels of classroom engagement have been linked to greater academic success
(Caraway, Tucker, Reinke, & Hall, 2003 and Wang & Holcombe, 2010). For the aforementioned
reasons it is crucial to implement a strategy that promotes engagement through teachers
practices as it affects both student and school. The following essay will aim to highlight the need
for teaching practices to utilise differentiation and Universal Design for Learning to meet the
needs of students and create positive student engagement through a teacher oriented survey
and review of relevant literature.

An Australian Context
The need for student engagement is outlined in the Australian Institute for Teaching and School
Leadership Professional Standards for Teachers. The standards highlight the importance of
knowing students and how they learn, knowing the content and how to teach it, and planning for
and implementing effective teaching and learning strategies (AITSL, 2012). The topic of
differentiation is a common theme within these headings, particular within standard 1.5:
Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of
abilities (AITSL, 2012). Differentiation involves generating different outcomes and materials for
students that may have trouble understanding classroom content, so that they are able to
demonstrate their abilities alongside their peers. This could also involve the presentation and
assessment of their knowledge. This strategy could be classed as Universal Design for Learning
(UDL). UDL is a framework for instruction organized around three principles based on the
learning sciences. These principles guide the design and development of curriculum that is
effective and inclusive for all learners (Hall, Meyer & Rose. 2012). The UDL approach is also
adaptable to individuals and provides better flexibility than past rigid curriculum structures.
Applying a UDL at an early stage in the development of learning materials improves the
chances of engaging all students as the materials are directed at all learning capabilities. By this
process, activities in the classroom that are too hard can be excluded as a source of boredom
or disengagement.

What is engagement?
For the purpose of this essay, classroom engagement is the active participation of students
through focused behavior, emotion and cognition (Connell, 1990). Typically, students
experience the highest levels of engagement in activities that positively influence their identity
development (Nakkula, 2003). To meet the needs of students and to engage students through
developing their identity, teaching practices that positively contribute to identity development
should be implemented so that students feel a genuine desire to attend classes and participate
in these classes.

How can the identity of students be promoted and students feel engaged through teaching
praxis?
Teachers are expected to engage students on an individual level and as a whole class. Whilst
the majority of classrooms have at least twenty to thirty students in them, the classes are
typically only an hour long. This means a teacher has roughly two minutes each class to engage
an individual student. Therefore, building an attractive teaching strategy that is inviting for
students, will place responsibility on students to engage in the classes as it has a positive
outcome for themselves. Cooper (2014) examined the possibility that teaching practices that
promote the development of a students identity should significantly engage students through
three different teaching strategies - connective instruction, academic rigour and lively teaching.

Connective Instruction
Connective instruction aims to help students make personal connections to a topic or class
(Martin & Dowson, 2009). Generating this positive connection to a topic maintains a level of
engagement that personally benefits a student. This aligns with the use of differentiation in class
to create an individual learning style for each student. This teaching strategy can be separated
from both academic rigour and lively teaching as they are both relient on the teachers decision
making and abilities to present information. Connective instruction, however, promotes the
student as the main access point of engagement and, as the student is experiencing schooling
from their own personalised viewpoint, is likely to be critical of any engagement that does not fit
inside their expectations or values (Yonezawa, Jones, & Joselowsky, 2009). Promoting
connective instruction can also begin at a curriculum design level with the implementation of
UDL so that individualised outcomes are available and students are able to demonstrate their
capabilities in an individualistic way such as a speech, writing, demonstration or less formal
assessment style. Connective instruction is also a bottom-up based practice for change,
differing from both academic rigour and lively teaching that are top down based approaches to
teaching.

Academic rigour
Academic rigour focuses on the skills and abilities of students in a classroom that are usually
demonstrated in highly focused situation (Wolf, Crosson, & Resnick, 2005). For many students,
this does not appeal to their personalised learning style as it can place a lot of stress on
students that may prefer a more relaxed approach to academia when this strategy is
implemented incorrectly. Many educators can confuse academic rigour as simply the addition of
more pressure or more work. It is more involved with providing challenging work, teachers
conveying passion for content and a teachers emphasis on hard work academic success in
their interactions with students (Cooper, 2014). This strategy does not allow for differentiation
and UDL due the single use nature and expectations of academic rigour.

Lively Teaching
As educators, there is an expectation of enthusiasm for the topic you teach. Over time, this
passion can steadily drop off due to repeating content and lack of diversity in teaching.
Teachers can become jaded and dissociate with the content they may have once been very
invested in. It is easy for these teachers to perform simple direct instructional activities with
handouts and copying notes. Lively teaching is the opposite of this and involves incorporating
games, group work and often project based learning to demonstrate a range of social and
academic capabilities (Cooper, 2014). In a 2009 study, 60% of students surveyed indicated that
they found group projects to be engaging (Yazzie-Mintz, 2009). In the same survey, 75% of
students indicated they did not find lecture based teaching activities engaging. Whilst this is an
overwhelming majority of students that do not agree with lecture based teaching, it is not
completely indicative that group based projects are the most engaging learning activity. Lively
teaching is also teacher based and may be difficult for many teachers that have a teaching style
that does not lend itself to being lively in the classroom. This concept is something that can be
easily affected by a range of problems from students disinterest to a teachers emotional state.
This approach has some similar aspects to differentiation but does not account for students that
may not engage with teachers through enthusiastic teaching.

Implementing these concepts as a teacher

For many teachers, using a single teaching approach is not practical. Likewise, using all
approaches is also impractical as it leads to an inconsistent approach to education. For most
teachers, mixing and matching many of these practices will benefit their students on an
engagement level. Scheerens (2008) conducted an analysis of instructional approaches,
associated with academic rigour and lively teaching, and constructivist approaches, associated
with connective instruction. Scheerens (2008) results indicated that constructivist approaches
improved the outcomes of students. Therefore, the need for a more student identity and student
needs based approach to teaching would benefit students and their engagement levels. The
more top-down, teacher-based approaches should not be disregarded and should have some
role to play when formalised, summative assessments are required, as this can help students to
work as an individual. Academic rigour, in particular, would benefit all students in this situation.

Survey Protocol of Teachers

To determine whether teachers utilise these teaching practices and the effectiveness of these
practices in engagement, a survey has been designed to obtain the perspective of teachers
from a curriculum design and an in-classroom perspective. This survey will generate a greater
understanding of the overall engagement process from a teachers perspective. A survey was
selected for use in this research project as the project is attempting to gather a variety of
information surrounding a persons perceptions, attitudes, and the design and implementation of
programs (Fink, 2009). In this research, a range of teachers are being examined in their student
engagement process, both in planning and in practice. A survey also allows for teachers to
complete the survey in their own time and does not require direct supervision, which will be
beneficial for the surveyor as well as it will be completed during a practicum which will not
require for an extended period of face to face time that would come with a research protocol
such as an interview or observation. There are some drawbacks of conducting a survey. Most
salient is the possibility that the participants do not represent the whole group of potential
teacher candidates (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun, 2011). Responses from participants can also be
more contrived and a participant could choose to respond in a way they may believe the
surveyor expects. To try and mitigate these potential issues, Suskie (2009) recommends
demographic information will be collected to help triangulate a true response from a teaching
demographic.

The curriculum design aspect of the survey is aimed to address the concept of UDL at a
multiple-class level, and the in-classroom perspective targets a teachers implementation of
differentiation, connective instruction, academic rigour and lively teaching. Due to the complex
nature of answers that teachers could respond with, there will be gaps in possible answers, but
this survey will attempt to anticipate all answers with an additional two lines for the survey
participants to add additional information to their response. This is a mixed-method approach to
surveys as it includes both structured and unstructured responses. The questions provide
additional information for teachers that may be unfamiliar with the topics, for example,
connective instruction or academic rigour. This may differentiate from Efron & Ravids (2014) list
of suggestions for survey writing protocols as these surveys could be delivered to teachers that
are not knowledgeable about the topics. However, Efron and Ravid (2014) present a
contradictory suggestion by stating avoid presumptions in your questions (pp. 112-113). It
would be beneficial for all participants to have some understanding of the different types of
engagement practices this survey is in regards to before completing the survey, but that is not
always a possibility and could bias the sample.

Survey:
What is your involvement in promoting engaging practices in the classroom and in
your curriculum?
Note: An area for clarification has been added to some questions.
You do not have to clarify if you do not wish to.

1 How much involvement do you have in the development of the curriculum for your
teaching area?

No Minor involvement A moderate amount of Very involved

involvement involvement

2 How much of your curriculum, do you believe, provides challenging work?

No challenging Small amounts of A moderate amount of A lot of

work challenging work challenging work challenging
work
3 Student based learning goals are outcomes that directly influence the personal
identity of a student.

On a scale of 1-10, how much do you believe the curriculum places on the emphasis
of student based learning goals?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Clarify:

4 Before you teach a class, how much do you consider the possible approaches to
engagement you could implement in your practice?

No Minor Consideration Some consideration A lot of

Consideration consideration

5 On a scale of 1-10, what do you believe is the average level of engagement of

students across all your classes?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6 How happy do you believe students are in your class?

Very unhappy Somewhat Indifferent Somewhat Happy

unhappy happy

7 On a scale of 1-10, how much of your classroom content do you believe is engaging
to students?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

8 On a scale of 1-10, on average, how often do you place pressure on students to

perform to a high standard?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Clarify:

9 On a scale of 1-10, on average, how often do you present challenging work to

students in class?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 Academic Rigour involves providing challenging work, conveying passion for content
and a teachers emphasis on hard work academic success in their interactions with
students (Cooper, 2014).

How likely are you to implement Academic Rigour in your teaching practice?

Very Unlikely Unlikely Indifferent Likely Very Likely

Clarify:

11 On a scale of 1-10, on average, how often do you implement a group based project
in class?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

12 Lively Teaching involves incorporating games, group work and often project based
learning to demonstrate a range of social and academic capabilities.

How likely are you to implement Lively Teaching in your teaching practice?

Very Unlikely Unlikely Indifferent Likely Very Likely

Clarify:

13 Do you believe the content you teach is relevant to to students personalised life
goals?

Not very Not relevant Somewhat Relevant Very relevant

relevant relevant

Clarify:

14 Connective instruction aims to help students make personal connections to a topic or

class (Martin & Dowson, 2009)

How likely are you to implement Connective Instruction in your teaching practice?

Very Unlikely Unlikely Indifferent Likely Very Likely

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