The sole purpose of the entire teaching process is to make students learn. The only way this can happen in a prolific manner is when the communication between both the teacher and the student is a two-way process. Student’s engagement, in the task at hand, is something a teacher should always look for.
Edx course “Classroom Strategies for Inquiry-Based Learning” is an aid for the instructors who are looking ways for the enhancing the student engagement and maximizing their learning in the classroom. The entire gist of the course revolves around the 5E instructional model which includes Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation. The first module of the course discusses the Engagement section of the 5E instructional model.
A lesson becomes interesting when the students start to find and analyze the connection between what is being taught in the class and how it can be put to use in the real world. To accomplish this, the teacher should come-up with the real-life examples that align with the student’s interest and then teach a concept in the context of that example.
Another important aspect of engaging students is to engross them in discussions in the form of a “think-pair-share” or group discussions. This is essential because students get to know each other and this information interchange makes learning more effective rather than being involved in a conventional student-teacher discussion.
Making students find a relation between what is being taught in the classroom and how it relates to their real life is just one way to engage them. Another engaging strategy that could be used is letting the students predict a certain phenomenon. Doing so gives their brain a kick-start on what is forthcoming. It also gives them a sense of ownership of the topic. They can start giving their own ideas about the topic and questions like “why” and “how” start popping up in their minds and these little predictions ignite their curiosity about finding the answers themselves.
Although I wasn’t the part of that physical classroom (the one they had in the video in the online course), I still found myself completely captivated by the video content. It was great seeing how making these small and simple activities part of the classroom actually boosts-up student’s interest in the class.
However, engaging oneself or the group of people comes with certain challenges. The most important challenge, especially when engaging a group, is devising such engagement activities that do not target a certain group of people, but devising such activities that everyone can be part of. Also, when asking questions, one has to make sure that the questions have open-ended answers. This way the answers won’t be categorized as right or wrong but would be a mix of ideas that would let one know about the prior knowledge of the group or class and from there the instructor can guide their thinking towards the actual concept. Keeping students involved also requires proper monitoring from the instructor’s side. This is crucial to make sure that students aren’t drifting from the discussion topic. During a group-based activity, the instructor should visit each group separately. There are two reasons for doing this:
1. The instructor will have an idea which student(s) in a group are communicative and which ones are taciturn.
2. If the instructor will give complete liberty to the classroom, then it will have a negative impact on the learning process.
Although the student-centric environment is necessary where you give the student a chance to explore the world, you cannot completely eliminate the authoritative role of the teacher from the equation. This role is necessary to keep a check and balance on the student’s learning.