Does engagement actually equal learning?
While perusing Flipboard , an article called “How to Determine if Student Engagement is Leading to Learning” caught my interest. Its main focus is how it is common to hear educators discuss the use of technology in both physical and virtual classrooms to engage students. The effectiveness of technology to increase learning is drawn from the 21stcentury student context. Put some technology in front of a student and they are sure to learn, right? After all, they love technology.
“In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.”
(The Glossary of Education Reform, 2014, Student Engagement)
Students can be engaged in a class – collaboration, creativity, and fun can all be evident – but how can you tell if learning is actually occurring? Where is the evidence? Students “can walk away from a lesson or activity having been very engaged but with very little in the form of new knowledge construction, conceptual mastery, or evidence of applied skills” (Sheninger, as cited in Mindshift, 2016).
It is critical that educators do not just use technology as a means of getting students to have more fun or think more positively about a lesson without designing the use of the technology to also enhance the learning process. Visible evidence is needed in order to justify the use of technology in an academic setting – both physical and virtual.
Using an instructional design model that is based on the integration of technology is one way to help ensure that the technology being implemented both engages the students, but also helps them to take away new knowledge and skills. One such model that is currently being advo
cated for in the 21stcentury teaching and learning context is SAMR (Puentedura, 2006). This model provides four methods of incorporating technology into the design of a program. Each method is connected to an aspect of Bloom’s technology and moves from lower to higher order thinking. It is at the two higher levels that meaningful learning takes place, and being able to recognize these levels in one’s own design process is important.
So to correct my title…it should read:
Learning = Engagement + Design (meaningful technology integration)
References
The Glossary of Education Reform. (2014). Student engagement. Retrieved from https://edglossary.org/student-engagement/
Mindshift. (2016). How to determine if student engagement is leading to learning. Retrieved from https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/01/14/how-to-determine-if-student-engagement-is-leading-to-learning/
Puentedura, R. (2006). A model for technology and transformation [pdf]. Retrieved from https://hippasus.com/resources/sweden2010/SAMR_TPCK_IntroToAdvancedPractice.pdf
Hi Bobbi,
I like your last point that learning has to include meaningful design and integration. I have researched SAMR a fair bit and like it’s simplicity and found it effective in guiding me as I started ti integrate technology into my teaching. Have you looked into TPACK (http://www.tpack.org/)? It is similar to SAMR, although it looks more into what knowledge is required from teachers in order to integrate technology into their teaching.