TOUCHSTONE 5: I engage student interest with every lesson.
Explanation
When we examine the core touchstone five it’s clear that it boils down to student engagement in a lesson. Studies have shown that student motivation is on par with teacher performance when looking at student effect on performance. When developing student motivation, we must take a look at intrinsic motivation for students to desire learning. Educators must find ways to keep lessons fresh and moving to keep natural curiosity in students peaked. Students will tune out boring and mundane assignments and activities which lowers student performance but may also lead to discipline problems. Contrary extrinsic motivation offering rewards for performance can often lead to diminishing results down the road. Students will stop learning and acquiring knowledge for personal growth and will only seek opportunities if externally motivated. Engaging students all starts with the “hook”. Just like a catchy chorus of a popular song it draws you in. The engagement “hook” can come in the form of an essential question or issuing challenges. Educators can also use novelty items to spark curiosity in a standard, using visual pieces, bulletin boards or music. Oftentimes rearranging seating in the classroom can set the tone in a unit. Engagement doesn’t just stop with a catchy hook to the lesson, research has shown we have ten minutes before we lose students. Ten minutes before they checkout and need to be re-directed or re-engaged. This is where chunking our lessons into ten to fifteen minute bundles to continually re-engage students. Great activities allow students to discover material, instead of force feeding them facts. Building mystery, suspense and puzzles to allow students the aha moment is a great way to keep them engaged. Lessons should be developed with a hook, direct instruction, guided practice and a closure piece. Another way to keep students actively engaged in their learning is to provide choices. Allowing students to choice a large project or essay questions gives them ownership in their education and they truly feel empowered by their choices.
Application
An effective hook is essential to engage students into material that we’ve pulled out of our standards. With this course being a blended learning style the majority of the class will be self-guided online. This proposes not only how I drawn them the students in but how I am able to offer re-engagement strategies throughout a lesson. I through the use of technology am using the I do, we do, you do model to keep students on task and intrinsically engaged in the course material. Below is an example of introductory activities during a three-day lesson on Goal Setting in Leadership.
Day 1-(5-7 minutes)-THE “HOOK”
After short video of myself introducing the online unit and explaining objectives for day 1, the students will be directed to a series of inspirational quotes on goal setting through a Prezi presentation. The quotes that will appear on the presentation will be from Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Bo Jackson and finishing with a quote from Bill Copeland. I will set the warm-up with Bill Copeland’s quote, “The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” After the last question they will be prompted to move on and have a written reflection in their athletic journal. The prompt will read, “Have you or a teammate ever been in the situation of running down the field, court, track or onto the mat with no direction from oneself?” Journaling benefits the learner by allowing them to reflect on personal values, summarize ideas, solve problems and view their growth by reading past entries.
“What keeps me going is goals.”-Muhammad Ali
“I’m a firm believer in goal setting. Step by step. I can’t see any other way of accomplishing anything.”-Michael Jordan
“My short-term goals are obtainable on a daily or monthly basis. I like to make short-term goals something that makes me feel better and sets me up to better prepare for the long-term goal.”- Michael Phelps.
“It is important to set goals in life. I set mine to the highest standard I can achieve.”-Usain Bolt
“Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.”-Bo Jackson
“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.”-Bill Copeland
Day 2-(5-7 minutes)-“WARM UP”
Day 2 will start with a short video welcoming the students to day 2 of Leadership and Goal Setting. We will start with the lessons objectives and what is on task for the lesson. Students will then click next to advance to an article Goal Setting for Athletes by Mike Edger that posted in Sport Psychology Today. Directions will be posted above the article instructing them to capture the main ideas of the article in their captain’s journal. Capturing key words and ideas can provide more depth in processing textual information with students than reading alone. When they advance, a slide will appear with the main themes I would hope they glean from the writing.
Day 3-(15 Minutes)-“TICKET IN”
Day 3 will start as the previous three with consistency for remote learning. A short video welcoming them back with lesson objectives. Students will then proceed to a small project in which they will make a poster with the team goal they set with their other captains. They are creating a visual that will hang in the team room, two places in the locker room and in the athletic hallway. Mini-projects like this don’t have to be super complicated, it is packed with evidence with learning targets in mind (Gonzalez, 2018).
Additional Resources