*I originally started planning this post for Staffrm over two years ago but never published it. Since restarting my blogging habit here I’ve gone back and forth with this one and, if I’m honest, I’m still not happy with it. In the end, I decided that I wanted to put it out there and see what happened. I know that engagement is a dividing term so let's hear your thoughts!*
Engagement. A word that draws passionate responses in the microcosm that is the Twitter-verse. If Tweeters are to be believed, engagement is one of two things: it is either vital for learning and those who do not engage children will not help children learn to love learning OR it is a dirty word that is used to make excuses for bad behaviour and make teachers do things that do not help promote learning. Ok, so that’s a over generalisation of the spectrum of opinion you’ll really find but it is representative of the tribalistic nature that social media at times. In 2013, Professor Rob Coe wrote about poor proxies for learning. Students being busy and students being engaged are the first two on this list. Just because pupils are engaged, it doesn’t mean they are learning (nor does it mean that they aren’t, just that we can’t assume that learning is happening because these conditions are met). What does that look like in a classroom? I believe that engagement is necessary but not sufficient. Pupils must be engaged with their work to learn from it; however, this is not the same as pupils being on the edge of their seat constantly, waiting for the next bang and whistle. Pupils can be engaged in quiet, reflective, challenging deliberate practice. Pupils can be engaged in improving their footwork to beat an opposition player one on one. Or pupils can be engaged in making a Roman shield. The question becomes: what do you want your pupils to learn? What are they practicing? What aspects of their footwork do they need to improve? What is it about the Romans that you want your pupils to learn? What is it that you want them to remember? And here lies the problem. A carefully designed opportunity for deliberate practice, combined with well thought out explanations and modelled examples will help pupils to understand, apply and recall an idea. It can help pupils practice the things that they need to store in long term memory. But, if the activity encourages pupils to think about something other than what you want them to remember, they may be engaged but they won’t be learning effectively. Pupils will remember what they are thinking about so if they are mostly thinking about the pattern on their Roman shield then that is what they’ll remember. If they are mainly thinking about the ways in which they can attach the handle to their shield then that is what they will remember most (Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School articulates this much more effectively than I could hope to. If you haven’t already, I thoroughly recommend you read this book). Now that is not to say that what they are thinking about MIGHT have a valuable place in their learning but it is not necessarily what you want them to learn. As we said earlier, engagement is necessary but not sufficient. Clare Sealy wrote a great blog about teaching for memory, distinguishing between episodic and semantic memory. I recommend it as a great resource for understanding why ‘fun’ experiences don’t necessarily lead to great academic learning but we ‘remember’ them so fondly. Now I'm not saying that lessons shouldn't be fun or engaging. Having fun in lessons is a happy bi-product: it should not be the actual goal of teaching. Yes, pupils will learn more in a happy environment but it does not follow that we should engage in edu-tainment.
Outstanding?
A quick visit to teaching groups on Facebook will reveal regular requests from teachers asking for ideas for an outstanding lesson, normally because they have a lesson observation approaching. Many teachers, I believe fall into this trap, especially in the early stages of their career. I know I did (ok, not by asking on social media but by preparing more for lesson observations). To an extent, this is human nature; we want to do particularly well when someone is watching. It is also a symptom of the high stakes observation culture which was prevalent until recently (and still is in places. Personally, I’m much more in favour of low stakes regular coaching to support staff). OFSTED have moved away from the idea of grading individual lessons due to the lack of reliability in judgements between observers. With this said, teachers are still looking for outstanding lessons and I think a big problem with this is that the individual period is not an effective unit of time for learning (I think I first heard phrasing like this from Kris Boulton on the Mr Barton Maths podcast but I’m not honestly sure…if anyone knows an accurate source I would love to make this more accurate). Learning takes place over time but generally teachers think about individual lessons rather than a sequence of lessons. When we think of learning in terms of individual lessons (especially when we know we are going to be observed), we are more likely to think about how we are going to engage our pupils, except engagement can often be confused for entertainment. For me outstanding teaching is great teaching, where pupils learn lots and have the opportunity to practice and apply what they know, over a period of time. An ongoing conversation Following recent developments on edu-twitter, spats and arguments about traditional vs progressive (the old chestnut that doesn't seem to go away) and Sean Harford leaving the platform, I've seen lots of tweets about the need to avoid a two-camps approach. This got me thinking about the term 'engagement' again. It still evokes strong feelings, emotions and opinions. Although this blog is far from perfect, although I keep wanting to tweak, change and rewrite it, I keep coming back to the one line: engagement is necessary but not sufficient.
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