Teaching Us How To Learn

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." That was how the polymath, Benjamin Franklin summed up the art of learning.

Yet, despite the convenience of new and more modern education tools, building student engagement seems to be a daunting task, ever. Recent survey into school and higher education practices across India shows that the excessive use of personal gadgets, lack of parental support and apathy towards the career stream are the key barriers to student engagement. Moreover, there is a perceptible decline in values, ethics and discipline, described obliquely as ` behavioural challenges' by teachers who also admit that they are not fully equipped to handle these.

Student engagement at the institutional, grade and state level in India is showing wild variations; government school students seem less engaged even as the engagement at the higher education level is declining. Traditionally education-driven states are also witnessing lower engagement. The situation calls for the adoption of elementary yet innovative methods to improvement the student involvement.

Teachers may adopt inventive, humane methods
Student engagement is central to addressing declining academic achievement, student boredom and alienation, and high dropout rates but the major challenge to accurately measure the same is the suitability of available instruments. An educator can use school scores, student self-evaluation, school engagement scores, attitudes towards mathematics, school success profile, teacher reports, reading engagement index, observational measures, classroom conduct and academic response among several well documented techniques.

Monitor students for cues: Direct teaching classes are an inert activity hence students either go into ritual compliance or passive compliance. Teachers are at the heart of engagement hence they need to be approachable, prepared, and sensitive to student needs. The key is to turn classes into an active, collaborative, and relational engagement where the learning has a clear meaning and immediate value to students. Educational author, Dr. Michael Schmoker (`Results Now') says student engagement can be learned in few basic steps; students will be alert, tracking with their eyes, taking notes, attentively listening, asking questions or responding to questions and reacting.

Student Engagement Instrument: A more quantifiable tool, the Student Engagement Instrument (SEI), used by the University of Minnesot, postulates that student engagement is directly related to important outcomes such as marks and grades in schools as well as graduation and post-graduation outcomes. SEI concurs that such outcomes are highly influenced by relative context (teachers, school environment and peers besides family support) hence amenable to intervention. From the four types of engagement data (academic, behavioral, cognitive, and affective), SEI focuses on cognitive and affective engagement.

Break up lecture with activities: Experts recommend few human but practical ways to enhance the pedagogical engagement. Dr Schmoker recommends breaking up the lecture with learning activities; practice, talk, discuss, etc. Instructional learning is the best way. So, a teacher needs to deploy effective instructions - an example of which is allowing time for instruction (writing what they learned or discussing key points) after a detailed lecture. Educationist Dr Phill Schlechty says teachers should incorporate movement into your lessons such as questioning from a spot or writing clues on whiteboards.

Enhance the confidence: Pacing the instruction at a right pace would be highly appropriate for student engagement as they get to connect, respond and involve with a topic. However, breaking the spree with 'thinking time' and asking for interesting things or questions would be meaningful. Beyond instructional methods, a teacher must enhance self-belief as experts say `students engage when they act as their own learning agents, working to achieve goals meaningful to them'. Therefore, when they have control over learning processes, they gain confidence and show commitment. Some amount of freedom is enjoyed when students work both autonomously and with others.

Educational institutions to play a larger role
Develop social and cultural capital: Given the increasing challenges to teachers and the need for constant training to meet these, the education institution must step in to create a genial environment - key for students to feel accepted. By investing in a variety of enabling facilities like advising centres, an institution can promote and maintain student engagement. Experts say developing `social and cultural capital' in students is highly beneficial for those coming from financially weaker background or disadvantaged circumstances; an example is to institutionalise a supportive, collaborative learning atmosphere or simply an emotionally safe scenario.

If your students are arguing about the best way or many ways to do an assignment, teachers can take comfort that they have created a rich learning eco-system. Therefore, it is critical to present problems and tasks that can have a conventional or unorthodox solutions. A teacher is expected to link the assignment with an important life skill or expertise.

Surveys, data to provide functional insights
Design a process to measure the engagement: Surveys are a great way to learn student engagement issues and find out possible solutions. An active-learning environment allows teachers to experience and measure the quality of engagement. For example, poorly performing students may be getting used to lower quality work hence teachers may have to use draft-and-revision process to break it. Use the design process to drive your students to produce higher-quality work than they are used to doing when they create only a first effort.

Experience the learning, face to face: One way to engage is through what a University of Washington study calls `service-learning'; learning that actively involves students in a wide range of experiences and advances the goals of a given curriculum. It gives a chance to directly apply theoretical models in a community setting, leading to benefits like first-hand understanding of the content, a broader appreciation of the discipline and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.

Teachers can spend more `face-to-face' office hours, giving the opportunity to ask in-depth questions or clarify confusion that cannot be fully addressed in class. Since deficit of time and schedule constraints can limit such interactions, teachers will have to plan well, show more commitment and encourage students to come to them. A solution could be adoption of technology which will facilitate a virtual classroom online which can give the flexibility to clear up doubts as and when a student takes up his homework. Since multiple students can participate, it leads to an active discussion and archiving such sessions can help others who may have similar questions.

Flip the learning method: Flipping the classroom is a time-tested method that reverses the traditional learning environment by delivering the instructional content online but activities such as homework are taken back in the classroom. Such classrooms allow students to watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home, all done with the guidance of a mentor. Similarly, for more meaningful discussions and outcomes, students are allowed to prepare well ahead of time on defined parameters. Large classes (defined as 100+ students) should not be limited to just lecturing but more for actively solving problems by interacting with each another and the instructor.

Teaching with technology
Increasingly, teachers say usage of personal devices widen the attention deficit and student engagement though the affinity to technology can be brought into teaching with an appropriate framework. One thing for sure, technology has provided greater access to information, deepening the engagement. Today, students and teachers can be part of the same network in which they can virtually help each other, thereby accelerating the pace of learning.

A force multiplier for teachers: Globally, we have seen the power of technology to be a "force multiplier" for teachers. Students can access information on the web, online tutorials and other resources to enhance engagement. Technology can even lessen the burden of parental involvement as they can understand the curriculum to career prospects of their wards, effectively. In children, technology can enhance inquisitiveness, skills such as communications, team work, critical thinking and problem solving. They also acquire technology skills while doing these projects.

Entertaining gizmo to useful tool: Teaching with technology can inherently deepen student learning by supporting instructional objectives even though selecting ideal tools can be tough. In fact, flipping class or service learning depends much on the use of technology. Students are familiar with presentation software, tablets, online collaboration and conferencing tools that allow them to share documents online and edit in real time. Course management tools enable instructors to organize resources as well as grading tools besides giving a platform for discussions, document sharing, and video and audio communication. Smartphones can be used to engage students to check their pace of learning. Lecture-capture tools, learning technologies, wired campuses and faculty focussed software are all great tools for student engagement.

Asathoma Sadgamaya: This is the land of Vedas which galvanised the power of knowledge and learning. Education is the source of an enlightened life and teachers leave a lasting impact in our lives; a good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill the love of learning. As India prepares to implement the lofty vision of the National Education Policy 2016, it needs to equip its teachers with the best of technology, human skills and training for engaging and involving students in as many ways as possible.