Kim Thomas doesn't teach mathematics. "I teach mathlicious," she beamed. Thomas is the 2016 Illinois State Teacher of the Year and a stealthy ninja of numbers who makes math—er, mathlicious—content engaging for 7th and 8th graders at the Woodruff Career and Technical Center in Peoria, Ill. The alternative learning program serves students who have struggled in, or been expelled from, traditional schools.
"Kids come to me with negative parabolas on their face," Thomas quipped. "I say, wait a 60th of a minute and let my mathlicious rub off on you."
Numerous studies show that engaged students are more likely to be motivated to learn, experience satisfaction from learning, persist in challenging work, and improve their academic achievement. In Gallup's 2015 national survey, nearly 8 in 10 U.S. adults and more than 8 in 10 U.S. school superintendents said student engagement with classwork and their hope for the future are "very important" measures of a public school's effectiveness.
The Engagement Gap
Yet, despite clear benefits and adult interest, surveys of students report that engagement remains elusive and, in fact, precipitously declines as students move through K–12 education. ASCD's Whole Child Program Director Sean Slade said this phenomenon reflects a system that's become so myopic about test scores, that it has lost sight of the processes of learning.
"Academic success and engagement are not mutually exclusive," argued DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. "It requires adults to do more, but we can do both."
It is becoming clearer that engagement is the lens through which students see school, and is therefore their window toward hope for their futures. In Gallup's report, vice chair Connie Rath noted that "students who strongly agreed that their school is committed to building students' strengths and that they have a teacher who makes them excited about the future are almost 30 times as likely to be engaged learners as their peers who strongly disagreed with both statements."
To open the full spectrum of what is possible for all students, ASCD convened its 2016 Whole Child Symposium on "Closing the Engagement Gap" May 4 in Washington, D.C. Invited guests and panelists included Thomas, Henderson, student representatives from The Future Project at DC's Eastern High School, Habits of Mind author Bena Kallick, and student voice expert Russell Quaglia. The night was a forum for elevating student and educator voices on engagement and amplifying how to better connect students to their own learning.
Listen to Students
"We will only be successful if our schools are places where students want to be," Henderson declared. As part of its evolution as the fastest-improving school district in the United States, educators in DC Public Schools have created multiple, meaningful avenues for asking students what they want from school. For example, student representatives inform school budgets, and student survey responses will be included in overall evaluation measures for teachers.
"Kids have something to teach us, but we have to be willing to learn," noted Quaglia. "Our system is grounded in testing and accountability, but we need to move to trust and responsibility." Quaglia said the main way to negotiate this shift is by engaging student voice. Kallick described a school in Houston, Tex., with students as teaching assistants in every classroom. These TAs are briefed on lesson plans and give teachers feedback on how to make lessons more engaging. Kids not only have a voice, but are also invited to use it in meaningful ways as cocreators of their learning experiences.
Money Talks
"Young people have a lot to say," said Henderson. As part of her budgeting processes, she asked two students from each high school to consult on where the district should spend money. She discovered that students wanted more funding for a broader range of electives, student clubs, athletics, and Advanced Placement courses. "What we offer to our children tells them what we value," observed ASCD Executive Director Deb Delisle.
To move from knowing what students want to taking the steps to make it happen, Henderson created a pool of grant money, which amounts to about an additional $100 per student, available to schools who create compelling plans for how they will use the money to make schools more enjoyable. Proposals for the Proving What's Possible grants include everything from requests to fund antibullying programs to expanding field trip and study abroad opportunities. On top of these grants, each school offers more AP courses, at least 20 electives, and increased athletics funding based on community feedback about the kinds of schools students want to attend.
In the past year, DCPS high schools added more than 90 new elective courses (including ceramics, debate, African American literature, cinematic arts, and journalism), hired 14 new high school athletics coordinators to manage sports and after-school programs, and invested more than $750,000 in new athletic equipment.
"When you're willing to put your money where students tell you to, that's a whole different ball game," Henderson noted. Ensuring that children like going to school is one of Henderson's top budget priorities, and she has set a goal that by 2017, 90 percent of students will say they like school.
Embrace the 13-Letter F Word
In a September 2014 Educational Leadershiparticle, ASCD authors Robyn Jackson and Allison Zmuda write that real engagement, not compliance, comes when learning goals are clear, relevant, and appropriately challenging, and the classroom culture signals that teachers are genuinely invested in student learning. This means making room for students to try new things, make mistakes, and learn from their mistakes.
Quaglia's research shows that schools where students know what they're learning and why it matters to them are places where teachers have a voice. And when teachers have a voice, they're three times more likely to ensure that students have a voice, he reported. This sort of symbiosis feeds engagement, which in turn powers relationships. "Relationships are the prime factor of teaching," Kim Thomas said. "What do you love? What makes you laugh? You can build off that in any content area."
"To engage kids, we first need to let them know they matter," added Quaglia.
Thomas starts each year with a project called Me, Myself, and Math. "We introduce ourselves mathematically," she explained. Students quantify different aspects of their lives and interests, even using polygons and angles from their names to contribute to a classroom display that spells out "MATH." Thomas uses curiosity-generating projects to personalize instruction to her students. "I know they can learn math at a level they never thought possible," she said, noting that by learning through projects, journaling, meaningful math games, and play, some kids are learning without even realizing it.
"You don't have to love math to love math class," said Quaglia. He argued that schools' focus should be all about relationships between students, teachers, and content. Although John Hattie's widely cited meta-analyses show that positive teacher–student relationships have a large and beneficial influence on student achievement, education systems don't do enough to prioritize relationships, Quaglia noted. "Relationships are the 13-letter F word in education."
Slade agreed. "Teachers are telling us what we need to do to push engagement, but we're still writing policies that ignore [relationships]."
Fun without Fluff
Ask students what they want from school, and then give them some responsibility for making that vision a reality, Quaglia advised. Chancellor Kaya Henderson related an example from a school site visit she experienced in Cuba. The school's student government included seven vice presidents, each charged with a particular area of influence. There was a VP of curriculum and instruction who communicated with point people in every class to relay student needs to teachers. The VP of lands and grounds coordinated students in taking responsibility for keeping the school looking nice. And a VP of bulletin boards made sure displays reflected what students, not just teachers, wanted to see on the walls. "Kids were interested, owning their school, and loving it," exclaimed Henderson. "That's something we could do tomorrow that doesn't cost a dollar."
Infusing opportunities for voice and cocreation, for both teachers and students, will get us to the schools our students want to see, said Henderson—schools built on a backbone of passion, excitement, and activity, added Kallick.
"Ask kids, 'What can I do to make you happy?,'" said Thomas. She acknowledged it can be a little scary to start a lesson or topic on the basis of what students like, especially if that's not how you were prepared to teach. She recommended pairing up with a mentor teacher to ensure that adapting lessons to be more fun doesn't mean they're full of fluff.
To make learning more engaging, "we need to lift up examples of what we want to see," added Henderson. DCPS paid its best teachers to create interactive, interdisciplinary "Cornerstone" lessons, and then required all teachers to implement at least one each year. For example, one lesson integrated learning to ride a bike—including balance, coordination, safety, and navigation—as a Cornerstone for all DCPS 2nd graders. Now, teachers are clamoring for more than one Cornerstone lesson a year.
Learning Becomes Electric
At the conclusion of the Whole Child Symposium, Eastern High students asked Thomas what motivates her to pursue engagement. "I remember being bored as a kid," she recalled. "I still have a middle school teacher waiting for 1,000 sentences." She related her belief that teachers do want to listen to their students, but they need to give kids the tools to ask for what they want in schools.
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Miss the live event? Watch an archived video of the 2016 ASCD Whole Child Symposium at www.ascd.org/wcsymposium.