Don't Confuse Compliancy with Engagement

In many of our classrooms, students appear engaged (to be honest, I would say an incredible 95% of the time); however, to be reflective practicioners we need to take a closer look at what's rote work vs. thinking work.

Student Notetaking - compliant or engaging?
Student Listening - complaint or engaging?
Student Debate - complaint or engaging?


Of the three listed above, how many did you think were engaging and how many were compliant?

As you plan your lessons, know that there will be times when students must comply, when you just have to give information.  However, work to ensure that you are engaging them regularly with that information.  The 10:2 (10 minutes of teacher-directed work to 2 minutes of student-directed work) rule is a good guide to help you in this endeavor.

Students demonstrate their understanding of text features through a game on Kahoot.

Students apply their math knowledge by playing a game...to progress, they must accurately answer the problem.

Students are protons, neutrons, and electons.  Protons and neutrons "steal" electrons to learn about ions. 

In this class, students are engaged in both inquiry-learning and required reading.  They start by physically organizing the features of non-fiction text and end with applying their understanding to leveled non-fiction articles.

What could be more engaging (and exciting!) than frog dissection day?

Students demonstrate understanding of geometric principles as they manipulate parts into a whole.

Students work with partners, counting to twenty by twos in German.  Then, the inner circle of partners rotates so that each student has a new partner for the next engaging task.

Shifting to Learning Goals

In the last week, there have been a couple of emails about helping students set goals, but how often have you been irritated by a student goal that sounds like this, "My goal is to get an A in the class."?  Is that the goal we want for our students, a grade?  Answer:  NO, unless the grade is 100% reflective of the learning.  To be 100% of the learning, then we'd have to fix all 15 of Ken O'Connor's suggestions in our book study, and let's face it...we aren't ready to do that...yet.

Instead, we need to get students focused on setting goals related to learning, but in order for that to happen, we must:

1)  Set clear learning targets.
2)  Engage students with those targets so they can understand and set their own goals.
3)  Build lessons that engage students to learn autonomously so that they feel a sense of control over their learning.

Here are great examples of these 3 steps....

Given their writing rubric, students reflect upon their writing progress, identifying skills they have mastered and skills they need to improve.

Once students have reflected on their work, they are given options for personalized writing goals.  The samples directly correlate to their rubric to ensure alignment to learning targets and student ownership of learning.

Students writing DBQs work with partners to get feedback on their DBQ learning targets that are directly aligned to the rubric.



Students set the goal to eliminate bullying by targeting specific audiences.  They then begin to research and create presentations that can be given to various groups of students.

When we consistently accomplish these, we've built a learning culture where students will never ask, "Do I have to do this?"

There's an App for That (Comments Wanted!)

Want to have student do more work with the speaking and listening standards of CCSS?  There's an app for that...Spreaker Radio is a free app that allows students to become on-air personalities, mixing their voices with music and sound effects, creating podcasts, etc.

Want to have students watch or design their DIY projects?  There's an app for that...Instructables is a free app with over 100,000 tutorials and a way to upload student-designed tutorials.

Want to have students demonstrate their knowledge by teaching a friend?  There's an app for that...Educreations is a free app for iPad where kids show what they know through an interactive whiteboard.

I challenge you to share apps that you've found in the comments below.  There are so many great tools that we can use in the classroom, and they're developed daily!

The Math Curse - An Interdisciplinary Approach to Real-Life Math

Students in 6th grade math are using a model text to write their own version of the math curse.  One might ask, "What is the math curse?"  It's the inability to go throughout your day seeing all of the real world uses of math...All. Day. Long....

This interdisciplinary activity gets kids reading and writing about math, creatively looking at math in their daily lives, and provides collaborative learning opportunities.

Check it out...

The assignment!

Writing about math!

Conferencing with their teachers!

Student choice in the format of writing!

Students sharing ideas and supporting one another!

Moving on to the final draft!

The One Non-Negotiable in EVERY Lesson: Required Student Engagement

Engaging kids in their learning equals getting kids thinking and building understanding about both content and skills.  While there will always be a need for direct instruction, each lesson should also do 2 things:

1)  Check for student understanding through engagement; this requires a "no excuses" mentality - a simple class question/answer session allows students to "check out" while others answer the questions.

2)  Get students engaged in their own learning; this requires students to be thinking about their work - while taking notes looks like students being engaged, I speak from experience when I say I can take notes with the best of them while thinking of something else entirely.

Students are thinking about their science content.  Instead of listing qualities of different types of rocks, they are looking at rocks and classifying them with a teacher-provided chart.  Each member of the small group takes turns with the jobs to ensure full engagement and thinking for every student.

Getting kids to manipulate their math engages their minds.  In the above picture, kids are matching the equation to the word problem and the graphic representation.  This diverse experience requires them to make connections and apply their learning.

And, here are the directions for that last picture...

By collaborating, students are required to articulate their thoughts about the above matching exercise; additionally, by having a partner, a student struggling with the learning has a support to help determine accurate answers.

A simple piece of paper within a plastic cover provides a "whiteboard" for quick checks of understanding and required engagement of all students.

And look, they each show their answer.

Kids love games, so getting students involved in a little friendly competition is great for engagement.  In this case, fluency is key...the faster the student, the more fluent in their understanding of the content.  

All students participated in a play about the Revolutionary War.  Students learned songs and individual songs to help foster their understanding of the content.

In the above two pictures, students are listening to a recording of their performance and making notes about their observations.  Once finished, they discuss their observations with a partner before a whole class discussion.  In the end, their observations lead to improvements in their performance.

In the two pictures above, students are working together to design a workout routine that will incorporate the core components of fitness; once they've completed their routine, they publish it to music and lead the class to build a healthy community of learners.

Technology is a great resource for student engagement; in this picture, a student is taking a quiz on Infused Learning to demonstrate his understanding of the content.

Getting kids to chart their progress over time engages them in reflective learning practices,  Here, students are charting their repetitions and weights to support increased fitness.

Building Tolerance Within Our Family

In Flyertimes and beyond (yes, that's a lot like "to infinity and beyond..."), we have been focusing on building tolerance.   Check out these examples of expanding thinking about diverse groups of people and things...

Pilots lead students in diversity awareness activities.

Students lead a discussion on the true definition of beauty.

Students practice communicating clearly to help build understanding of those with learning disabilities and communication challenges.

Students make an acrostic to help them build tolerance.

Tolerance starts by understanding ourselves and being open to learning as evidenced in this guidance lesson.

Beyond Flyertimes, we build tolerance for interdisciplinary learning.  Because we prioritize the interconnectiveness of learning, students aren't shocked when they see another subject "creeping" into their classes.

Equations in science!

History and timelines in science!

Never Discount the Power of Elective Classes

Flash Mob?....Nope that's just 6th grade orchestra students having an impromptu practice.

When designing a house, you must evaluate the added features compared to your budget.

Here's a little spatial reasoning...students figure out square footage as they design their houses.

Speaking and listening, anyone?  Yep, that's what they're doing as they prepare for their monologue auditions in drama, using BYOD to practice.

Reviewing the teacher's blog to help prepare for the assessment.

Songs for increasing memory of new learning...

Designing and measuring in FACS...