Engagement Does Not Always Equate to Learning

No matter where I am, whether it is a physical location or virtual, I am always hearing conversations about how technology can be used to effectively engage students.  This is extremely important as the majority of students spend six to eight hours a day in schools where they are completely disengaged. I for one can’t blame today’s learner for being bored in school when I all have to do is observe my own son at home playing Minecraft to see firsthand his high level of engagement.  His Minecraft experiences provide meaning and relevance in an environment that is intellectually stimulating but more importantly fun. Schools and educators would be wise to take cues from the real world and make concerted efforts to integrate technology with the purpose to increase student engagement. Engagement, after all, is the impetus for learning in my opinion.

Let’s take a closer look at defining what engagement really means from the Glossary of Education Reform:

"In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education. Generally speaking, the concept of “student engagement” is predicated on the belief that learning improves when students are inquisitive, interested, or inspired, and that learning tends to suffer when students are bored, dispassionate, disaffected, or otherwise “disengaged.” Stronger student engagement or improved student engagement are common instructional objectives expressed by educators." 

The last line in the description above elicits a great deal of concern for me.  With or without technology, there always seems to be a great deal of emphasis on student engagement, but the fact of the matter is that engagement does not necessarily equate to learning.  I have observed numerous lessons where students were obviously engaged through the integration of technology, but there was no clear indication that students were learning.  Having fun, collaborating, communicating, and being creative are all very important elements that should be embedded elements of pedagogically-sound lessons, but we must not lose sight of the importance of the connection to, and evidence of, learning. Thus, students can walk away from a lesson or activity having been very engaged, but still walk away with very little in the form of new knowledge construction, conceptual mastery, or evidence of applied skills. When speaking at events I often ask leaders and teachers how they measure the impact of technology on learning. More often than not I receive blank stares or an open admission that they have no idea. The allure of engagement can be blinding as well as misleading.

It is so important to look beyond just student engagement when it comes to technology. If the emphasis is on digital learning we must not get caught up in the bells and whistles or smoke and mirrors that are commonly associated with the digital aspect alone. Engagement should always translate into deeper learning opportunities where technology provides students the means to think critically and solve problems while demonstrating what they know and can do in a variety of ways. Technology should be implemented to increase engagement, but that engagement must lead to support, enhancement, or an increase in student learning. It should not be used as a digital pacifier or gimmick to get students to be active participants in class. With technology there should be a focus on active learning where students are doing.

Here are some questions that will assist in determining if engagement is leading to actual learning:

• Is the technology being integrated in a purposeful way grounded in sound pedagogy?
• What are the learning objectives/outcomes?
• Are students demonstrating the construction of new knowledge? Are they creating a learning product/artifact?
• How are students applying essential skills they have acquired to demonstrate conceptual mastery? 
• What assessments (formative, summative) are being used to determine standard attainment?
• How are students being provided feedback as to their progress towards the specific learning objectives/outcomes?
• Is there alignment to current observation/evaluation tools?

Engagement, relevance, and fun are great, but make sure there is observable evidence that students are learning when integrating technology. N

Snow Days Don't Stop Digital Learning at #NMHS

The now annual Digital Learning Day was set for Wednesday February 5, 2014. The only problem was that no one told the weather gods this.  As a result, the Northeast was once again hit with a huge winter storm, which came on the heels of one earlier in the week that dumped over 8 inches of snow.  This monstrosity brought more sleet and ice, which necessitated yet another day off from school.  

Image credit: http://www.edudemic.com/

Many of my teachers had specific activities planned for Digital Learning Day. Most schools and educators that suffered the same fate as us were probably demoralized by the fact that all of their planning was for naught.  This certainly was not the case for us at NMHS. Why might you ask? The answer is simple. For the past couple of years every day is treated as Digital Learning Day as we have moved to create a teaching and learning culture rich in authentic activities where students are engaged and take ownership of their learning. Below is a rundown of activities that were planned.  I have changed everything to the past tense, as there is no doubt in my mind that my teachers will follow through with these activities.  It is just what we do at NMHS.

• All students in Mrs. Chellani's Calculus, Pre-Calculus, and Algebra I courses viewed videos, utilized interactive apps on their cell phones, and employed the Socrative app on their cell phones to learn the content, understand its real-world applications, and foster and engage in class discussion.
• Ms. Chowdhury's students had been learning science mostly through taking notes and memorizing formulas while she was on maternity leave. In order for her students to start learning through the inquiry method starting from the middle of the school year, she needed to re-teach some concepts more effectively. She found a game website developed by a Rutgers University physics education program graduate called The Universe and More.  This website has amazing games that summarize most of the kinematics unit. Students often are not willing to learn the same concept twice thinking that they already know it. These games on the website are fun and challenging, and the students really have to understand kinematics in order to improve levels. Every next level is locked until they can pass the previous level. Some students may be inclined to guess to complete a level, but after a couple levels of guessing they will find a pattern to the guessing, which is really the goal of the game. This will help set the background knowledge for students to learn the next concepts of momentum, energy, electrostatics, etc.
• The Lance held (or will hold) the first ever live twitter chat party. Jelani Rogers wrote an article about the unique ways that students are inviting dates to prom ("promposals"). She posted a request using a specific twitter hashtag asking all NMHS students to tweet us their promposal pics along with a 140 character story of how it all went down. Responses are going to be incorporated into her article next week as a slideshow. 
• Mrs. Fleming collaborated with numerous NMHS teachers.  Dr. Asa-Awuku and the engineering class worked on creating innovative inventions using the Makey-Makey kits we have in our Makerspace.  Mrs. Beiner and her students went to the media center to work on molecular gastronomy. They learned how to follow a digital recipe and then later in the week will be making their own digital recipes. Mr. Groff and his students used Mozilla Thimble and HTML and CSS coding to create vintage historical newspapers. Mrs. Collentine's class used TwitterMagnets to create original, creative sonnets.
• In Mrs. Vicari's Computer Apps and Business Strategy classes she showed students how to create a website using WIX.com.
• Numerous students always have the opportunity to work on IOCS projects and their virtual courses.

So what did you do on Digital Learning Day 2014? More importantly, how have you embedded digital learning consistently into your school culture so that every day students are engaged in authentic tasks and are empowered to take ownership of their learning?

A Commitment to Digital Learning

New Milford High School proudly joined 37 states, 15,000 teachers, and over 2 million students on February 1 for the inaugural Digital Learning Day.  This day, however, was not really much different than any other day at NMHS as we have made a commitment to integrate digital learning into school culture for some time now.  As Principal I am proud to state that many of the pedagogical techniques, learning activities, and tools described in the rest of this post are consistently in use on a daily basis across all content areas.  The reason for this is that we have put a premium on creating a teaching and learning culture that better meets the needs of our learners while enhancing essential skills such as collaboration, communication, creativity, media literacy, and global awareness.  Below I have summarized some of the pre-planned activities that my teachers planned and had their students engaged in on Digital Learning Day.  

Image credit: http://socialmediaclub.org/node?page=2

In Ms. Levy’s U.S. History class, students learned about the rise of Jacksonian Democracy and had to determine if Jackson was a highly successful president or a corrupt leader.  Students were broken up into groups of 5-6 students.  Each student went on line and looked at one source from Ms. Levy’s website.  They then had to use their “Origin Perspective Value Limitation” handout to answer and dissect the source in classic IB format.  Once they had evaluated the source for these 4 elements, they wrote down their answers in a group created Google Doc.  Finally, they came together as a group to decide their perspective on Andrew Jackson’s presidency.  After students decided as a group, they voted individually as a class about their opinion on the source with “Poll Everywhere,” using their cell phones.

In Mrs. Morel’s art class, students embarked on a QR Code scavenger art hunt around the school. This activity began with an introduction to QR Codes: what they are, how they are used in the marketing world, how we are going to use them, and best of all, how they (students) could use them in their lives. Students also reviewed artists’ work and tried out a few QR codes in class. For the lesson, students were paired up with a partner and utilized their Smartphone, iPod, etc. to search for clues that led them to QR Codes. The QR Codes contained various artists’ work and clue information.  Mrs. Morel wrapped up the activity with a summary of the findings and then transitioned into having the students create their own QR codes with links to their artwork and websites.  These were then posted in school for our school community to scan.

Mrs. Vicari’s business classes utilized YouTube, a variety of video sites, and websites to preview Superbowl commercials as an introduction to the semester Marketing/Advertising course.  Students discussed the definitions of marketing and advertising and how they are different.  They used a series of thought-provoking questions, while viewing the various commercials, to identify different areas of marketing and advertising that will be discussed in this course throughout the semester.

Students in Mr. Tusa’s history class investigated the history of Europe through painting (1500-1800).  He challenged students to think of a painting as an essay - in the sense that it captures not in words, as an essay does, but through a visual image, some aspect(s) of the life, history, and culture of a particular historical period from the point of view not of a writer but of an artist.  Students were given a list of paintings/engravings produced in the period 1500-1800. Working with partners, they had to choose one painting from each category, study it by paying particular attention to the political, economic, religious, social, industrial, and/or artistic way in which it captures/criticizes some aspect(s) of the period 1500-1800, and record their impressions accordingly. He reminded students to “read” the painting as they would read an essay and record their view/impression of what historical themes, ideas, person or people, the painting is portraying/criticizing.  Using Mac Books:  one student recorded and shared their comments on a Google Doc while the other searched for and viewed the paintings. Links were also provided for students to locate and view paintings.

Students in Mrs. Beiner’s Culinary Arts classes created a “how to” video for recipes.  They then posted them on her YouTube account and tracked how many hits they received over the Superbowl weekend.  Her Early Childhood Development classes read a book to the pre-school children on an iPad and worked with a website to review the book.

In math, Mrs. Chellani began the lesson with mobile learning devices and Poll Everywhere to review prior learning. She then utilized a variety of virtual manipulatives (using the SMART tablet) from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.  These virtual games/math problems are a fantastic way to further embed the Smart tablet into daily instruction, help foster the students' development of higher-order thinking skills, and make the learning experience more challenging and enjoyable.

History teacher Ms. Millan collaborated with Mrs. Keesing, our media specialist, on a QR code assignment. Students used their cellphones to download an app to both create and read QR codes.  To tie in with their study of the English monarchy in the Elizabethan-Stuart era, they researched websites to find quality information on selected, relevant topics.  They then created QR codes for those websites.  Students printed the codes and affixed them to some of the school library's books -- some of which greatly benefited from the updated information the students located.

Later in the day, Mrs. Keesing again collaborated with a colleague, this time in science.  With Ms. Chowdhury's honors physics class, students used Edmodo as a means of collaborating on a new topic.  They shared their observations with their pre-set groups and uploaded images that they had created to further examine the concepts they were learning about and applying.

The students in Mrs. Westervelt’s Independent Living Skills course became familiar with, and completed an online job application to practice applying for a job in the 21st century.

In music, Mrs. Swarctz conducted a survey using Smartphones in all of her classes.  Those students who did not have one worked with those who did.  In addition, she used YouTube in each class to watch other schools that have performed the music they are currently performing.  During her second period class the students conducted research using YouTube to help with their solos.  Each lesson ended with students continuing to work in the Music lab on an on-line music theory program.

Students in Ms. Perna’s US History I class created Wordles to review information studied prior to their midterm.  In order to review prior learning, students worked in pairs to create Wordles related to the presidencies of Washington and Adams, up until the election of 1800.  This allowed students to work collaboratively using technology (computers) while reviewing prior learning.  As a class, they viewed and discussed the Wordles created in order for students to see what their peers had created while reviewing together as a large group before moving on with the curriculum.

Mr. Andolino had his Applied Music Theory students create a music commercial using software.  Finished products were posted to Pure Volume.  Prior to Digital Learning Day an original vocal rap and live performance was recorded with a portable recorder and uploaded online.

Ms. Millian’s math students utilized an Avermedia document camera to display work.  Poll Everywhere was used in class to express opinions and check for understanding by completing problems and texting answers in.

Using the Poll Everywhere, Mrs. Mackey’s English students used their cell phones to respond to questions based on what they knew about persuasive writing. The teacher gave out sample HSPA (High School Proficiency Assessment) rubrics specifically for persuasive essay writing. Then, using the Smart Board, the students read actual HSPA essay prompts and responses while using Poll Everywhere to answer, "What score do you think this essay received?" For closure, the students responded to an open ended polling question: "As of today, how do you feel you will do on the essay portion of the HSPA?"

Students in Ms. Ginter’s Biology class have been working on creating a travel brochure PowerPoint presentation using several websites that provided them with specific information on their assigned biomes. The assignment required them to include key information specific to the biome (ex. native animals, native plants, average temperature, and average precipitation), as well as interesting things for people to do or see there. They incorporated graphics in their presentation through the usage of charts, pictures, diagrams, and videos - where appropriate. The students were then responsible for rating the presentations and voting on the best one to present to a client using Poll Everywhere and their cell phones.


Here is a video we produced leading up to Digital Learning Day showcasing our Social Studies Department.

As you can see, NMHS has made a commitment to digital learning, not just on one day, but everyday.