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Why do some students engage their learning while others disengage?

This is the most intriguing and difficult question I encountered during my teacher training last year at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. The deeper I searched for answers, the more unwieldy my exploration became. I learned, for example, that engagement isn’t simply a matter of ability or attitude but a complex range of social conditions, policy, practice, individual learning differences and many other variables.

But one issue I didn’t see addressed is the role of shifting technological paradigms and the reality of a web2.0 oriented learner. Also notably absent from much discussion is the students’ perspective. Unlike the tech sector, education is not user-driven but largely top down. Like the older developer-driven models, educational stakeholders (academic researchers, teachers, administrators and policy makers) design metrics and methodologies that speak to their own research and policy requirements. Why not measure the efficacy of the system according to the sensory orientations of today’s learners instead of measuring the student against a laggard system? In the context of diffusion of innovations, our students are the innovators and early adopters - so why aren’t we listening to them? As a formerly disengaged learner, I find this lack of connection with the end user problematic. In my view, addressing the web2.0 learner is the path to crossing the chasm of student disengagement.

Web 2.0 students

Based on my own experiences, observations, education and professional background as a web content producer, I believe today’s student disengagement involves a conflict between old and new paradigms. Schools, governing bodies and teacher training programs are still invested in traditional instructional, curriculum and information models that are out of step with a radically changed student - and world. These older models are especially disconnected from the our web 2.0 moment, which involves the user in a visually rich, participatory, multi-modal experience on a day to day, hour to hour basis. Moreover, web2.0 is all about user controls and customizable content. In many ways, today’s gaming and software developers know far more about how our students “learn” than traditional educators because developers are already tapped into a user-centric model. Young people expect to have control of their experience, to participate in it and shape it. Take away those opportunities and they disconnect.

During my practice teaching experience, I used a lot of wired examples to engaged students who were otherwise disruptive and off task. Citing a popular videogame or website resulted in immediate interest and connection. Hands went up when students were provided with the opportunity to refer to participatory and social media as a means of connecting familiar reference points to the lesson content. It’s basic human nature for an individual to become more giving and open to another’s world when you take an interest in theirs. Legendary advertising designer Milton Glaser says (note: the following link opens a quicktime video)”if you like Mozart and I like Mozart, we already have something in common. So the likelihood of our killing each other is diminished.” Glaser’s statement about the positive connecting experience of art is also applicable to today’s web 2.0 social media orientations - the very trends that are shaping the way our students learn and engage the world around them. For today’s students, engagement requires connection. Students who formerly tuned me out were more patient and interested in what I had to share once I established an my investment in the same wired models they engaged.

The shock of the new

From their text messages and Facebook updates to their online gaming activities, today’s youth bring a level of technological sophistication to the classroom that isn’t being properly utilized or - often - productively understood. More commonly, educators cite our students new sensory orientations as incompatible with traditional learning (i.e., multi-tasking v. focus on singular tasks) without understanding the new skills or benefits that cannot be measured via traditional metrics. As with the history of scientific revolutions, the old guard get nervous when paradigm shifts threaten to destabilize older approaches, tools or expertise. New models are dismissed because they do not resemble the old and are, incorrectly, scrutinized according to their ability to function within the older paradigm. I cannot help but question the near-hysteria emerging from some educators when the subject turns to social and participatory media, gaming and a variety of other teen trends that appear to threaten older ways of learning and living. According to CBC education columnist Mary Ellen Lang, the real issue here is the question of context - not right or wrong:

“Nobody knows more about their needs than today’s youth. They’re spending time using applications that allow them to interact and participate - not simply function as passive receptors of information. The real question is not whether their technological interests are “good” or “bad” but how to harness these trends for ethical and productive purposes - i.e., school”

As a freelance writer and educational content producer, I’ve been - in my way - “teaching” somebody something with each museum exhibit, web project or article I write. With each of my clients, I’m devoted to creating an effective learning experience for the end user, one that allows them to interact and participate with an experience that engages them on a variety of levels.

Respecting students as end users

One of the oldest and most common assessment tools we have is the diagnostic. In its simplest form, a learning diagnostic consists of a series of carefully selected questions designed to provide the educator with knowledge about an individual student and their prior knowledge, understanding, learning style and/or exceptionalities.

Traditionally, a pen and paper diagnostic is subject specific and leaves little or no room for peripheral information about the student’s extracurricular interests or activities. The limitation of this “interface” is especially galling for today’s youth who are all about social and cultural “granularity” (i.e., the rich visual, text and audio meta data they select to define their social and cultural contexts to others).

Instead, we ask the questions that speak to our knowledge base - not theirs. In this context, those students who succeed succeed only because they have agreed to buy-in to a model they may not believe in. This type of student isn’t being properly engaged, they’re simply more adept at “playing” school. They tell teacher what teacher wants to hear. This behaviour is very different than authentic engagement or, indeed, learning.

I would like to argue that the absence of identity-specific context is very much at the heart of the disconnection many educators experience with today’s students. We’re simply not asking our students the right questions. For example, knowing whether a student is a gamer, loves graphic novels or spends all their time on Facebook could make the difference between engaging or not engaging that student. For example, the right question for a gamer might be whether they like mmorpgs or console games. If we do not show an interest in who our students are, what they enjoy and how they spend their time we give them little inspiration or invitation to connect. This is part of the logic of today’s wired youth. From the careful selection of their avatars to the complex lists of interests on their Facebook, MySpace and other digital lifestyle aggregators, our youth are deeply invested in sharing who and what they are - strangely, we don’t really show an interest.

I’m going to go out on a limb and argue that perhaps the reason we’re not asking the right questions is that we’re not spending any (or enough) time in their culture. In what some might term “youth culture.” We cannot ask the right questions (or know what to do with their answers) if we have no context for our students’ wired culture. The solution? Let’s start connecting with our students by exploring the technologies and interests they’re actually engaging. In professional web idiom, I’m asking that we start teaching with the end user in mind. Not merely the end learning objectives but the whole student. We can only achieve this if we know who the end user is. That’s where engagement really begins.