Making sure that your students are engaged with learning is fundamental to teaching. Yet it’s often one of the most challenging aspects to achieve.
That’s always been the case. Attendance, behavior, discipline – factors like these have been part of classroom dynamics since the earliest schools.
What is new? The impact of the digital age. The contemporary student is used to multiple streams of information and activity. Living in a world of tweets and vines, they have short attention spans, and expect content to be rich, stimulating and multilayered.
As a teacher, you could see your role as competing with the challenges to engagement that this world brings, and succeeding in spite of them.
Or you could embrace them, using them to help your students engage and learn the way they want to. At ITWORX Education, we know which side of the equation we’re on! Solutions such as WinjiGo can help you monitor, fine tune and improve the levels of engagement amongst your students.
Here are some of the key differences between engaged and disengaged learners. For many of these, there are digital techniques that you could consider – we’ve given just a few to get you thinking…
What does an engaged learner look like?
– Sustains their involvement in learning.
– Is positive and enthusiastic about learning. You could use WinjiGo’s badging feature to pinpoint, track and reward this.
– Asks for help and advice, including outside the classroom. You could open email chats, forums, shared groups and more to facilitate this.
– Are naturally curious and interested.
– Concentrates, puts effort in and takes pride in their work. They are even willing to revisit their work to improve it.
– Are self-motivated and goal-driven.
– Enjoys and responds well to challenges. You could use blended learning techniques to explore this, setting fun and different challenges outside the classroom.
– Makes connections between what they’re learning at school and the real world.
What does a disengaged learner look like?
– Doesn’t really participate, and tends only to observe.
– Often delays completing tasks. (WinjiGo can help you monitor issues such as this).
– Is content with average work, and doing the bare minimum.
– Avoids challenges, stays in their comfort zone.
– Claims to find tasks boring, or repetitive. Again, using blended learning and other techniques can help you combat this, by creating tasks that are demonstrably varied.
– Claims to find tasks irrelevant to ‘the real world’.
– Often not sure what’s expected of them, but are unwilling (or unable) to ask.
– Isn’t excited by goals or challenges, and lacks a sense of personal development.
