Engagement
Multiple means of engagement focuses on how we keep students engaged and motivated to become “expert” learners, how we stimulate their interests to make learning more meaningful and provide options to increase the relevance of what we are teaching.
CAST (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Retrieved from http://udlguidelines.cast.orgWatch: Strategies to Promote Active Student Engagement
3 Ways to enhance Engagement of Students
Recruit student interest
Spark excitement and curiosity for learning.
Optimize individual choice and autonomy.
Allow learners to make choices in the difficulty, type of reward, the context for which they are practicing skills, tools used to complete the assignment, color/design/graphics/layouts of the final product, sequence or timing for completion of the parts of the tasks.
Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity.
Allow learners to participate in the design of classroom activities and academic tasks.
Minimize threats and distractions.
Involve learners, where and whenever possible to set their own goals.
sustain Effort & persistence
Help students build their individual skills for self-regulation and self-determination to motivate learning.
Heighten salience of goals and objectives.
Have learners state or restate a goal.
Display the goal/objective/directions in a variety of ways.
Encourage students to determine the steps it will take to complete the work/assignment.
Demonstrate how to use technology to support tracking progress.
Use visual and/or verbal prompts to help students visualize the outcome/final product.
Engage learners in assessment discussions and set high expectations they are aware of.
Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge.
Differentiate the degree of difficulty or complexity of core activities/assignments to be completed
Vary the tools and ways students can complete assignments
Emphasize the process, effort, and improvement in meeting standards rather than just the final evaluation.
Foster collaboration and community.
Group and construct communities of learners that have similar interests/goals.
Create cooperative/flexible learning groups with clear goals, roles, and responsibilities.
Use positive behavior supports with differentiated objectives and supports.
Provide prompts that support learners in when and how to ask peers/teachers for help.
Have clear expectations for group work (rubrics, norms, etc.)
Increase mastery-oriented feedback.
Provide clear feedback that encourages perseverance, develops self-awareness, and encourages the use of specific supports and strategies when facing challenges.
Provide feedback that emphasizes effort, improvement, and achieving a standard.
Feedback should be timely and specific.
Provide feedback that is substantive and informative rather than comparative or competitive.
Help students identify positive strategies for success by using feedback to make improvements.
Self-Regulation
Harness the power of emotions and motivation in learning.
Promote high expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation.
Offer a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
Allow students to set personal goals that can realistically be achieved.
Use prompts, rubrics, reminders, and checklists to support student learning and success.
Facilitate personal coping skills and strategies.
Use behavior-specific praise to provide feedback.
Focus on positive reinforcement for student achievement
Use real-life situations or simulations to demonstrate coping skills
Develop self-assessment and reflection.
Allow students to monitor their own progress towards goal completion using charts or ways to display their progress.
Use activities that include a way that learners receive feedback immediately and have access to alternate scaffolds to support understanding their progress in a way that is easily understood and timely.
Promote growth mindset: allow learners to learn from their own “mistakes” and use it as an opportunity for growth by placing an emphasis on effort (not ability).
Students should be able to engage meaningfully and participate in lesson.
The instructor is purposeful and thoughtful in what they are presenting to the students, planning for ways that UDL can be used within and across courses to engage in different ways with the students.
Refers to the fact there are many ways to keep students engaged and motivated to become expert learners.
Stimulating students' interests and motivation for learning in a variety of ways.
Provide options that increase the relevance and authenticity of instructional activities (e.g., using money to teach math).
Provide options that encourage collaboration and communication (e.g., peer tutoring).