In order to be successful teachers, our goal should be to create a positive educational experience for our students. Yet, as our readings showed, this isn't as simple as we might wish it was. In order to promote adolescent literacy inside and outside of school, as the Harvard article presents, I believe we should first look at the Intrator and Kunzman article. In this article, we are presented with the term "active engagement" (Intrator & Kunzman 31). I'd first like to focus here because I believe that promoting active engagement is perhaps the hardest, yet most important thing we will do as teachers. However, what is active engagement and how do we promote/create that in our classrooms? I will present some ideas, but I'd be interested in hearing what my peers have to say about creating and maintaining active engagement in our classrooms.
Above, we see an infographic on six ways to keep our students engaged as provided by the Inclusion Lab. What do you think about these six strategies? Do you agree or disagree with them?
Another recurring theme from both readings was the concept of relevancy. Is what we are teaching our students relevant to their life outside of school, is it relevant to their identity and personal history? Often times, especially in highly diverse schools, it seems the curriculum isn't relevant. As teachers, we need to be aware of representation in our curriculum, something the Harvard researchers see again and again in their research. Students are much more likely to read or engage with material that reminds them of themselves. Here, I want to include a link to my absolute favorite Ted Talk of all time, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talking about the danger of a single story. Adichie's powerful recollection of growing up as a child searching for a story that resembled her's is a powerful reminder of the responsibility we have as teachers to make our classrooms effective for all of our students. If you haven't seen this Ted Talk, I highly recommend it, it is one I come back to whenever I feel discouraged.
When I ask my 8-year-old cousin Grace, what she thinks about school. She has a lot to say. Grace is in third grade at an elementary school a few miles outside of Chicago in Berwyn. When I pick Grace up from school I always ask her how her day was, what did she do, what did she learn, did she have a good day? Grace, like most other elementary school students, usually has a lot to say. She loves her teacher, they do cool lessons and make art and tell stories! She says, "Destiny did you know...", she is proud of what she learns and looks forward to going to school. She makes ME want to go back to elementary school! Yet, a few minutes later when we pick up her older sister Chloe, a twelve-year-old in 7th grade, her answers to my questions are markedly different. She tells me what she and her friends talked about at lunch, upcoming social events, and the new inside joke she shares with her friends.
In elementary school, I too loved school! We did awesome projects and I always had fun! I was an adamant reader and writer, I was always actively engaged. Yet, as I transitioned into Junior High and High School, I too started to focus more on the social aspects of school, school became a drag for me too. I wasn't stimulated and I was bored. Yet, because I went to a nice school in the suburbs and was from a middle-class family, I could afford to be bored in school. I still graduated, I still enrolled in college, my passive engagement impacted my daily life but not much else. Yet, as Intrator and Kunzman point out, "being bored, it appears, costs more to those who can afford it least" (31).
So, for the Chloe's in our class, how can we make their educational experience a little more like Grace's? How can we make our classrooms engaging for all of our students? It begins with innovative curriculum, by caring for our students, fostering the deep student/adult relationships that teens need but don't know how to ask for, and by being inclusive and representative for all of our students.
I agree that keeping students engaged is key, not just because it promotes an active learning, but because it gives students agency and a voice in their own classroom. As “Who Are Adolescents Today?” by Alvermann points out, this involvement is missing from many schools. The strategies suggested in that diagram are good starting points, but I think that as adolescents grow, they may also benefit from taking on an active role in the larger planning of the classroom as well. For example, my high school history teacher used to let us decide the format and days of exams, and even though that wasn’t content-related, I always appreciated that he gave us a say in things.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing Adichie’s story here. Why do you think that white American culture has gravitated toward stories of tragedy and disaster from Nigeria, rather than a more complete, representative tapestry of life? It’s an important question, as in “The complex world of adolescent literacy” by Moje,et al, many of the students reported that they wanted to learn more history in line with their heritage. For example, a sixth grader named Carlotta said she had searched for a biography about Cesar Chavez, who she wanted to learn more about despite her school’s curriculum not covering him. As a future physics teacher, I wonder how I might be able to incorporate more culturally representative material, to not limit the landscape of science to one story. Eurocentrism has surely dictated the way we have traditionally taught “hard sciences,” even if this isn’t as visible as it would be in a literature or history class.
I also agree with your point that giving students a voice is important. Like Alvermann says, that interaction is missing from many students. Keeping students engaged is very important as the young ones tend to lose interest fast. The article about keeping adolescents reading, it speaks of motivation to read. In 7th grade, we had to read the Giver, and in the begining, the class was into it, but the teacher did not really keep us engaged. So the whole class kinda lost interest in it. If she discussed the book with us, we would probably be more into it, because we were engaged in it, and we had a voice about what we liked or did not like.
DeleteYour story about The Giver is so disappointing to hear! Your teacher had the class eager to read, but she signaled to you through her own lack of interest that the book wasn't something you should continue to care about.
DeleteI agree that it is hard to keep students positively and actively involved. I used to hear all the time how much my peers hated school because they just didn't feel like they belong. In this new world of technology that is accessible in seconds it is also harder too keep students attention spans so making lessons inclusive to each student I think would help that. I really like the 6 tips on how to keep students engaged. It is harder for me to imagine incorporating them into my high school math classroom that I am looking to teach but that would mean that I would have to engage myself actively and positively like I want my students to be and I could use their creativity to come up with ideas too so they are even more involved in their learning
ReplyDeleteYes, I also struggle with finding methods to use in my high school classroom one day that won’t infantilize my students.
DeleteYour post about the six ways to involve students and keep them engaged is very interesting and important. I think all six of the strategies are interesting and provide a better learning environment for students however I believe giving students a choice, the third step, is of the most important. Throughout my educational career I have had teachers who enforced rules regarding the types of pen, pencils, and paper used by students. These kinds of rules do not foster a good learning environment as when students are that limited they do not feel invested in their education or its results.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I also think giving students a choice is important. It gives them ownership of their education.
DeleteI like that you used the word ownership. It is very important to remind students of that ownership. Especially with high school students. It is hard for them to see it now, but they deserve to have a say in their education. They are almost adults and should be treated as such. -Kiley
DeleteAlthough I do agree with your point on how the theme throughout all the readings is to promote positive adolescent literacy, the Harvard article states that "we see the world of adolescent literacy as complex, not only because both 'adolescent' and 'literacy' are ill-defined constructs, but also because young people are so different from one
ReplyDeleteanother" (2). However, in the next sentence over, it does state that they do share some important patterns (2). Nonetheless, it is still a difficult task to accomplish because the student population is so diverse (Intrator & Kunzman). With that being said, it is more difficult to promote it outside of school than inside due to different identities of the student. Now, as for the promotion of positive adolescent literacy in the classroom, I was totally on board with what was said on page 26 of the Harvard article. These students are still growing and trying to figure who they are, and so by incoporating texts that stem away from the standard content from the textbook, it builds social networks that engage youth in the identity enactments, content representations, and literacy and language practices of the disciplinary domains (26). With that being said, relating content to student lives tends to improve academic interest and performance, and I can say that from personal experience.
In a country as diverse as the United States, it is interesting how that is always seen as what makes America, America. From that, people can become more culturally aware and knowledgable of other cultures. However, in the school setting, it is almost as if the system is trying to assimilate each student and strip them away from their cultural identity to make them more "American." In school, I believe that it is important to let the student decide what he or she identifies to be, but at a young age where the brain is still developing, perhaps we must take it upon our own hands to become responsible for such a daring task. While I personally believe diversity is a great trait to have, it also has its downsides. Since everyone and everything is so different, there is not only one answer for every student.
I think it's obvious that adolescents don't have as much interest in school as elementary students. Adolescents have so much more things going on around them that it is hard for them to stay focus. I really like how you included the chart on how to keep students engaged. Shaking things up can go a long way in creating interest for the class. And I'm totally going to use this when I'm teaching. It's also very important to maintain relevancy to the students. And I like how you brought up how it can be difficult to maintain relevancy in classrooms with such a high amount of diversity. It can be a challenge not just in maintaining relevancy as a teacher but also maintaining relevancy with the curriculum.
ReplyDeleteI worked this summer as a counselor at a Christian summer camp called Lake Ann Camp in traverse City Michigan. While we had many ideas and methods of teaching and helping our campers, one theme stuck out to me in particular. The idea that if boredom is price you pay for information, the price is too high. Everything we did was engaging at some level. With this idea as a part of my pedagogy, I see the story of your family members experience in school as an example of the loss of wonder. Education should capture the imagination. We as humans are predisposed to work see at young ages. We begin to become, for lack of better words, boring as we become adults. The idea of the positive learning environment, in my personal opinion, is all about perpetuating wonder in the hearts of our students. Thanks for your input!
ReplyDeleteI think your post about six strategies is useful，for example, tip 5. I remember a case told by my university teacher about keeping students moving. When the time of a class is close to lunch time and students are tired and hungry，a teacher lets the whole class stand up and do finger exercises to students focus on the class. But a question is that if let student “5-minutes dance party” and student are too excited, how to make student come back, in other words, control the class?
ReplyDeleteGood point! If you have focus and lose it that can be difficult to regain.
DeleteWe can see that students do not have a long attention span when sitting in the same class for an hour or sometimes more. There are way too many things going on in their lives that they feel needs their immediate attention and teachers need to balance the needs of the teenagers with their attention spans. Some of the ways that have worked in my past experience as a student is just standing up and stretching or maybe changing seats and walking around for a few minutes during the class. Other ways is allowing the students to experience new things that will keep them engaged in the classroom and keep them interested in what is going on infront of them and not focused on what is going on with their friends around the school.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your insights!
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