What do the pictures on this post tell us about these students’ engagement? Can you tell who is “into” the
lesson, and who is not? Sometimes engagement is painfully obvious, and other times it isn’t.
Can anyone tell I had a LOT of staff development in recent years on this?? As a staff we were encouraged to have our students assess their own level of engagement to use on our own as a way to assess our “work.” We literally took time at the end of a class to get feedback (mostly anonymous) from our students. A popular one I used was small stickies and a chart with the Levels–and as kids left they put their sticky on their 
level. Students were encouraged to make other comments on the sticky, and encouraged to put their name on it too, which was strictly optional. There was no punishment, as I explained all the time I’m trying to fine tune a lesson, and their feedback is important to me.
I haven’t used this at all this year–shame on me–but I think I will get it back out. This was a great way to let me know I was creating lessons and activities that either worked or didn’t work.
Descriptions of Each of the 5 Levels of Engagement
There are five levels of engagement that students might go in and out of during a lesson. The more compelling the lesson is and the work associated with it the higher the likelihood that students will stay engaged. There are other reasons why students will stick with a lesson and work assigned or abandon it. Dr. Schlechty has defined all five levels of engagement
Engagement – High attention and high commitment —Authentic, willing and purposeful attention and true commitment to the demands of quality work. Student engagement should be the central concern of all teachers so that student achievement will increase. The core business of teaching is to create challenging, engaging, and satisfying work for every student, every day; therefore, staff engagement is seen as attention and commitment to designing such work. Students who are engaged learn at high levels, retain what they learn, and can transfer what they learn to new contexts.
Strategic Compliance – High attention but low commitment. There is learning occurring but the reason for the work is not the reason the students do the work. When strategically compliant, the students substitute their own goals - such as grades, class rank, college acceptance, parental approval - for the goals of the work. Students who are strategically compliant learn at high levels but have only a superficial grasp of what they have learned, so they do not retain what they learn for very long and usually cannot transfer what they learn from one context to another.
Ritual Compliance – Low attention and low commitment. The work has very little meaning to students, but they will do just enough to get by. The ritually compliant students do the minimum amount of work in order to avoid confrontation and negative consequences. There are no substitute goals for them. Students who are ritually compliant learn only at low levels and do not retain what they learn, so seldom can these students transfer what they learn from one context to another.
Retreatism – No attention and no commitment. The students who are retreating are disengaged from current classroom activities and goals. They may feel unable to do what is being asked, may be thinking about other things, and/or may be emotionally withdrawn from the action of the classroom. Students who are in retreat do not participate as they see no relevance to the work and, therefore, learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned.
Rebellion – Diverted attention. Negative learning occurs as rebellious students abandon the learning we offer them and replace it with their own agenda. These students learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned. They may even bring others along in their diversion as they encourage others to rebel or they provide too much of a distraction.
Levels of Engagement
Students who are engaged:
- Learn at high levels and have a profound grasp of what they learn
- Retain what they learn
- Transfer what they learn to new contexts
Students who are strategically compliant:
- Learn at high levels but have a superficial grasp of what they learn
- Do not retain what they learn
- Usually cannot transfer what they learn from one context to another
- Substitute their own goals for learning (getting good grades, college acceptance, etc)
Students who are ritually compliant:
- Learn only at low levels and have a superficial grasp of what they learn
- Do not retain what they learn
- Seldom can transfer what they learn from one context to another
- Learn because they want to avoid negative consequences
Students who are in retreatism:
- Do not participate and therefore learn little or nothing from the task or activity assigned
- Find no relevance in the assigned activity or task.
Students who are in rebellion:
- Find no relevance in the assigned activity or task.
- Sometimes learn a great deal from what they elect to do (though rarely that which was expected)
- Develop poor work habits and sometimes develop negative attitudes toward intellectual tasks and formal education
- Often disrupt others from learning.
Attribution:
Image: ‘Bacha3‘
www.flickr.com/photos/51035751904@N01/4191055
Image: ‘untitled‘
www.flickr.com/photos/86603835@N00/1435154217
Image: ‘Ratinder‘
www.flickr.com/photos/30083883@N00/404731585
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