The
Engagement
Equation
The questions
students ask before
taking on challenges
24
Leadership
Teaching a room full of curious,
eager, resilient students who get along and
share a hunger to learn is the vision most
teachers had when we entered the profes-
sion. Unfortunately, as a behavior specialist
visiting over 100 classrooms a year, today’s
classrooms seem to frequently be filled with
defiance, disruption and disrespect, as well
as more extreme problem behavior. In my
experience, teaching these classes can be ex-
hausting for even the most skilled teacher.
This is the contrast student engagement
makes in learning, as well as in job satisfac-
tion. When students are engaged, kids are
learning and teaching can be exhilarating.
When they are not engaged, problem be-
havior dominates and teaching tends to be
exhausting. Could it be that simple?
It seems many teachers think so. A re-
cent study by the Education Week Research
Center (2014) found that 87% of teachers
and administrators surveyed deem engage-
ment as the number one factor related to
student achievement. In fact, engagement
rated as more important than teacher qual-
ity, school climate and family involvement.
Teachers agree that engagement improves
attendance, grades, graduation rates, test
scores, behavior and discipline, readiness for
college and more. Interestingly, engagement
can both predict student achievement and
problem behavior.
Engagement can be interpreted, as on-
task behavior. Predictably, students on-task
tend to have better results than those who
are not. Similarly, if a student is not en-
gaged, they are off-task, which typically in-
volves some form of problem behavior. Thus,
the wise teacher can use student engagement
as a tool to gauge the amount of learning oc-
curring, as well as to predict the amount of
time that will need to be spent managing
problem behavior.
Engagement is important; the challenge
is figuring out how to engage an entire class
of students with a diverse range of skills,
interests and backgrounds. In particular,
how do we engage students who don’t ini-
tially bring the curiosity and enthusiasm for
learning that is so critical for success? En-
gagement is motivation in action, so in order
to understand how to engage students, an
educator has to understand a little bit about
the elements of motivation. The questions to
By Dr. Dustin Bindreiff