Student engagement is more that keeping the students attention, it is finding a way to get them involved in the work. Our Education Professor Nikki really struck me with a phrase she used in class a while back. She said that "Students can be the teachers too". How powerful would that be as a teaching tool? It is an age old saying for a reason. "If you really want to learn something, teach it." Giving students the tools they need to be a successful teacher of the material you are covering in class is a sure fire way to facilitate great assessment scores.
During small group, or even large group work, assigning roles to the teams could help galvanize the groups cohesion and ability to work together. I believe there are 5 major roles in a successful group.
1. Leader: This persons primary job is to maintain group cohesion. They are a support character that allows every one else to work smoothly. If one person needs help, it is the leaders responsibility to do their best to help.
2. Voice (reporter): This person will be responsible for reporting on the work that the group is doing. It is essential that they are informed in all aspects of the groups work and progress. The educator may ask for reporters at any given time during the lesson process, and the Voice should be able to report on exactly whats going on in the group, where they are at in their progress, if they need any outside help, and how soon they can estimate to completion.
3. Lead Researcher: It is the job of the Lead Researcher to pull information from assign sources, decipher if it is valuable to the project, alter it so that it fits their needs and get that information off to the Builder.
4. Builder: The Builder works on the project as a whole. If it is a Power Point Presentation, they take the material from the researcher and build the Power Point out of that. If it is a speech, they will build the structure of the speech. etc.
5. Devils Advocate: Every great plan can have holes. The job of the DA is to find those holes, and suggest corrections. Finding and understanding a counter argument is sometimes just as important as expressing your point of view.
These roles will need to be rotated after each project so that each student gets a chance to be in every role throughout the semester.
This process could really generate some fun ways for students to get an idea of what the outside world is really like. Each career has these elements to it. They may find one aspect that they enjoy. That would allow us as educators to assist them in getting more information in that field.
