3c: Engaging Students in Learning

Philosophy

Student engagement is an essential precondition for learning to take place. Engagement of all students is achieved by developing rapport and a clear understanding of student interest. In terms of content, students must be provided high-interest material, and exercise choice in choosing classroom materials. Studying a given subject in depth rather than emphasizing depth will teach students a method of inquiry that can be applied universally in their lives.

Progress Self-Assessment

Within the context of my classwork I take great pains to ensure that the students recognize the relavance of the activity to their own life. Many of our students come from depressed socio-ecnomic backgrounds and they often connect well to lessons that deconstruct issues of race, poverty and criminial justice. I also use a variety of instructional materials, and have found great success in using technology to increase student buy-in.


Explanation of Artifacts

1. Social Science Survey - Sociology Topics Rank Ordering Survey
In this activity, students were asked to rank order topics within the topic of Sociology to be covered within the limited amount of time alloted in the coursework. Based on the studnet responses, the unit began with the topics of the criminical justice system, and attraction and romantic love and marriage.

2. Inside and Out Activity
In this activity on the Crminal justice system, students are asked to reflect on why youths become involved with the criminal justice system. The web site contains narratives of young people's lives. In reflection The students are asked to draw comparisons between the the troubled youths' experience and their own life, and become engaged in a larger conversation by posting their reflections to an online discussion board.

Areas for Future Development

In the remainder of the year I hope to increase my use of problem-based learning, so that my students may engage with the material in a more meaningful way. In the future I will strive to provide more students with more options in the manner in which they complete assignments. Also, I wish to provide more opportunities for students to provide feedback on instruction to better assess the efficacy of instruction.