Classroom Participation v. Classroom Engagement: A Note to My Teachers

My district has adopted the Charlotte Danielson Framework for teacher evaluation.  As part of this transition, I provide my teachers with e-mails that give deeper explanation and exploration of specific domains and components.  I wanted to share one on a topic that I talk to teachers frequently about - the difference between participation and engagement.  Let me know what you think?  Do you have similar conversations with your teachers?  And, how have you effectively moved their understanding?

Participation v. Engagement

Engaging students is an area that many teachers have questions about. I wanted to go over this particular domain with the hope of clarifying some questions.

Issues that people have shared:

1. We confuse engagement with participation. Engagement is about the mental effort that is exerted to master

the subject. Participation is about the physical indicators that we can observe that may or may not demonstrate mental efforts.

For instance, I can participate in a conversation where I am not engaged. If you ask me about the weather, and Itell you that it's cold outside, and it's snowing, I have participated, but there is no evidence that I have engaged.

You can ask me what my stance is on the Affordable Health Care Act, and I can do multiple things.

a. Participate - Simply say, I agree/don't agree or don't care and move on.

b. Participate and engage - I say, I agree/don't agree, don't care, and explain why I have this stance, AND it's not just a regurgitation of something I heard (engagement). You can increase my engagement by     asking questions or providing counterarguments, so I defend my position or explain.

c. Engage - I don't necessarily respond, but I think about it, and then may choose to participate/engage in theconversation at a later time.

We frequently observe Scenario A - from a limited number of students in a class - these students get points for participation even if they have not engaged in the mastery portion of the lesson.

We also see Scenario C - from students who are quiet and who are thinkers. They may not let you know that they are engaging, but they frequently surprise teachers by demonstrating their engagement in later

assignments.

The target Scenario is Scenario B. This is why Questioning and Discussion Techniques are so important - you are attempting to get students to participate in an activity that requires engagement over periods of time that lead to mastery.

Just because students participate, doesn't mean that they are engaging.

2. We skip prerequisites for engaging. This means you haven't established safety. Imagine that we are at a meeting. I stand at the front and start handing out sheets and tell you to fill out the sheets. The sheet doesn't have a header, but asks for several bits of personal information (your social security number, your phone number, and home address). I tell you that you have five minutes to fill out the sheet, and then I want you to share it with your partner to make sure that the sheets are filled out correctly.

What?! The five minutes will be used by almost everyone to figure out what is going on - some people will be

participating and filling out the sheets (not necessarily with the requested information), some people will be

talking about why I want the information, and some people will sit there - either refusing to fill out the sheets or trying to figure out why I want them to fill out the sheets and why they should share it with a partner.

There are prerequisites for engagement to occur. They don't have to take a whole class period, but they need to be done to establish safety.

a. There has to be a clear objective that everyone understands. If people don't understand WHY they are doing something, many will participate, but they won't engage AND complete the activity at the time of request.

b. There has to be clear criteria for what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. I most likely am going to get a range of responses on these sheets beyond what the written request is. To maximize the effectiveness of this, the participants should also be able to contribute. This is the purpose of doing things like establishing norms for meetings or providing rubrics for assignments.

c. People have to understand the procedures and strategies that are being used and the choices of procedures and strategies that they can use if the suggestions don't work for them. Why do you have to share your personal information with a partner? Who might be a complete stranger and would now have access to your personal information? Can't I just re-read or have a personal conference if the sheet isn't correct?

Participating in class is scary enough for students, engaging is a risk that many of them aren't willing to take -

what if people know that they don't know? This is why so many students wait for the answer, or, simply repeat the answers that they know are right.

Skipping prerequisites, means that you won't make your classroom safe and you won't get to engage

students.

3. There's not much to engage in.  This is a common mistake that is made when the focus of instruction is topical  (facts and memorization), rather than skills.

To explore a topic REQUIRES skills.

To change the content and/or context and maintain engagement REQUIRES skills.

The content gets you started (participation), the skills get you engaged.

The easiest example of this is math. Many of us had math classes where the teacher gave you a problem like

2x+y=7, you then practiced many variations of the problem using the same procedures over and over. You did very well participating in this or you could do o.k. if you had your notes, but if you got a word problem or received a real world scenario, you weren't able to figure out what to do (engage).

Skills are applicable in different contexts and in different content; content is not. Understanding what a variable in math means very little if you can't recognize a variable in a science experiment, in a spending plan, or in a myriad of other place that you encounter variables.

For prolonged engagement:

a. Students must have a skill or a strategy (tools)

b. They must use the skill or strategy to explore content/contexts and have

c. They must be able to use the skill or strategy with MULTIPLE choices about how to use the skill and/or strategy OR contents/contexts to demonstrate mastery

This is why students can't just do one type of problem (even if the numbers are changed out), read one article or section of the textbook, or practice one thing over and over - they need multiple types of problems, articles, situations, so their minds are stretched during class.

What may START OFF as engagement turns into PARTICIPATION, which means no mental energy is being expended and there is NO engagement.

To be engaged, student have to be participating in a RICH experience with multiple points of entry.

When you hit all three of these areas, you will have a rigorous classroom.

Let's get out there and start engaging students!