Introduction
Today, most academic facilities want to hire effective teachers eager to maintain flexibility in their work and focus on students, their skills, and their interests. Various techniques may be applied to assess student learning, including observations, questioning, or active listening, to indicate if all students are engaged in the curriculum. Each area of improvement has its background, and the task is to prove the importance of change and prepare participants for transformations. In this paper, attention will be paid to the opportunities for students to reengage with the curriculum’s content and skills instead of focusing only on their grades. Teachers must understand that student engagement is crucial in fostering curiosity, attention, and passion for studying, and its promotion is one of the keys to the teacher effectiveness system.
Recognizing the Need for Engagement in Learning
The chosen area of improvement covers the necessity to provide students with opportunities for reengaging with the curriculum’s content and skills rather than considering grades only. The reasons for this weakness’s identification include the impact of engagement on student well-being and overall behaviors in school activities. Boulton et al. (2019) indicate a positive interaction between such variables as engagement and happiness. Although making students happy is not a direct responsibility among educators, promoting this feeling may contribute to establishing trusted relationships in the classroom.
Another example is that engaged students demonstrate involvement in various school activities: they ask questions, cooperate, and try to complete their assignments (Cents-Boonstra et al., 2019). In my opinion, the attitudes individuals develop in schools play an essential role in the further application of their knowledge. Students should not be obsessed with getting the highest grades without understanding how to apply their skills, and curriculums must be introduced to enhance their engagement. For example, engaged students are more responsible because they try to identify the most effective ways to assess their skills, and high grades can become an evident outcome.
Reengaging with the Curriculum: A Fresh Perspective
Improving student re-engagement in the classroom is a unique opportunity for teachers and students to look at the offered curriculum from a new perspective. Many researchers constantly investigate this field to prove that student engagement has to be addressed appropriately to develop the right students’ perceptions, strengthen interactions, and communicate the curriculum (Amerstorfer & von Münster-Kistner, 2021; Havik & Westergård, 2020; Heilporn et al., 2021; Schnitzler et al., 2020).
Still, it is insufficient to have the reasons and predict the outcomes regarding the offered improvement plan. Understanding how to implement the steps and apply the activities in the setting is more critical. I want to reengage students with content and skills by following a multi-contextual conceptualization offered by Wang and Hofkens (2020), focusing on academic and social contexts and underlying the role of teachers. Thus, the main steps are identifying roles in a learning process, choosing academic activities to pursue interests and competencies, and establishing a favorable social climate for interactions.
Step 1: Role Identification
The first step in my improvement plan is to identify the roles each participant should perform in the classroom. In addition to choosing a teacher as the primary coordinator and communicator in the setting, students need to recognize their worth in processes (Cunningham & Gibson, 2022). Thus, I will organize active communication with students, offer them a self-assessment tool to indicate which roles they prefer and find the most successful for engagement, and analyze the results. A final decision will be made using an open vote, during which each student is welcome to speak and identify personal reasons.
Step 2: Activity Selection
The next step of the improvement plan is to indicate a list of activities that will help reengage students with the content and skills. The primary purpose is to indicate collaborative skills and balance flexibility and structure (Bond et al., 2020). Although some might think that students want to gain complete independence in the classroom, they should never forget the importance of structuring their ideas and choices (Amerstorfer & von Münster-Kistner, 2021). I will focus on connecting learning activities with the natural world (how theories can be applied in real situations), following a schedule to meet the deadlines, and giving enough time/space for students to speak.
Step 3: Climate Creation
The final element of my plan is the creation of a positive learning climate where students understand what they should do and what expectations I have about their work. In addition to everyday classroom activities, I will underline the worth of extracurricular options. For example, Darling-Hammond et al. (2020) propose leadership opportunities to enhance their confidence and engagement. In the setting, students must implement various skills like communication, management, and leadership instead of completing tasks and getting grades. As soon as they diversify their skills in new content, they will be more interested in other activities.
Conclusion
Not many teachers are ready to identify student engagement with the content and skills as a severe system weakness. However, when students are not interested in what they have to do, a teacher’s responsibility is to analyze the situation and learn how to improve it. In this project, I recognized the area of improvement. I offered a plan to cover students’ academic and social needs by fairly distributing the roles of all participants in the classroom.
References
Amerstorfer, C. M., & von Münster-Kistner, C. F. (2021). Student perceptions of academic engagement and student-teacher relationships in problem-based learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. Web.
Bond, M., Buntins, K., Bedenlier, S., Zawacki-Richter, O., & Kerres, M. (2020). Mapping research in student engagement and educational technology in higher education: A systematic evidence map. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 17(1). Web.
Boulton, C. A., Hughes, E., Kent, C., Smith, J. R., & Williams, H. T. (2019). Student engagement and wellbeing over time at a higher education institution. PloS One, 14(11). Web.
Cents-Boonstra, M., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., Denessen, E., Aelterman, N., & Haerens, L. (2021). Fostering student engagement with motivating teaching: An observation study of teacher and student behaviours. Research Papers in Education, 36(6), 754-779. Web.
Cunningham, M., & Gibson, R. (2022). Rethinking curriculum: A pandemic opportunity for re-engagement with the arts? Curriculum Perspectives, 43, 3–12. Web.
Darling-Hammond, L., Flook, L., Cook-Harvey, C., Barron, B., & Osher, D. (2020). Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development. Applied Developmental Science, 24(2), 97-140. Web.
Havik, T., & Westergård, E. (2020). Do teachers matter? Students’ perceptions of classroom interactions and student engagement. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 64(4), 488-507. Web.
Heilporn, G., Lakhal, S., & Bélisle, M. (2021). An examination of teachers’ strategies to foster student engagement in blended learning in higher education. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 18. Web.
Schnitzler, K., Holzberger, D., & Seidel, T. (2021). All better than being disengaged: Student engagement patterns and their relations to academic self-concept and achievement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 36, 627-652. Web.
Wang, M. T., & Hofkens, T. L. (2020). Beyond classroom academics: A school-wide and multi-contextual perspective on student engagement in school. Adolescent Research Review, 5, 419-433. Web.