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Defining Engagement
“Student engagement” is a popular term for describing optimal responses from students to their experiences in higher education: participating in class, using campus support services, and ultimately staying in school to finish a college degree. That’s why, for example, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) looks at a spectrum of “educationally purposeful activities” inside and outside of the classroom as they assess levels of student engagement across higher ed. Since we are most focused on what student engagement looks like in a classroom, we’ll dive in here, but also acknowledge that other forms of student engagement are important and very much connected to one another along a spectrum.
For the sake of our work in the classroom, we’ve found Great School Partnership’s Edglossary definition of student engagement most helpful: “the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.” Here we get a picture of students wanting to learn what is important in our disciplines and classes, successfully completing our course, and eventually completing a degree. But, as you can imagine, this classroom engagement looks different based upon your discipline, class, and overall learning outcomes. It also hinges on the relationships you build with students, between students, and in how you facilitate authentic opportunities for all of you to engage with the questions and challenges that actually drive your discipline.
(Re)defining Engagement in Your Class
Since we teach and learn across a variety of disciplines, with a variety of learning outcomes and discipline-driving questions, student engagement can take many forms. While there may be some similarities, engagement in an English class may look different than in a Science class, since our disciplines use different lens on the world and value making claims and meaning in different ways. We assess learning differently too. To begin the process of thinking about what student engagement does or could look like in your class, here are some questions to consider:
- What are the key questions and challenges driving you and the work in your discipline? Why/how might students care about these questions and challenges with you?
- What does a student, fully engaged in what matters in your discipline, and on their way to meeting the learning outcomes in your course, look like? What do they know? What do they do? How do you hope they’ll get there?
- What multiple form(s) does/could “attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion” take in relation to what matters to students and your discipline? How could learning activities best facilitate this engagement? How will you know if these learning activities are facilitating this engagement?
- Overall, how do you already teach in ways that support optimal student engagement with your discipline and class? In what areas do you want to grow?
These questions are starting points for you in beginning to identify key aspects of student engagement. These questions also begin to help you recognize what you’re already doing towards optimal student engagement as well as areas where you may want to grow. Hopefully, these questions raise awareness that leads to the student engagement you hope for towards your learning outcomes and overall success for students in and beyond your course.
