There is plenty of discussion about student engagement these days or more accurately the lack of student engagement in the classroom.
Teachers are always commenting in the lunchroom or wherever they congregate that this year's kids don't listen as well as last year's students. I've even heard teachers say they fear for our nation's future as our students just aren't very good listeners.
Is it that they aren't good listeners or is it that they just aren't "buying what we're selling"?
I would urge all teachers (even those reporting good engagement in their classroom) to view their classroom from the perspective of their students.
Answer these questions:
Could you really handle being a student in your own classroom?
How engaging would the experience be?
Would you be tempted to tune out?
How much do you spend "lecturing" or reciting facts to your students?
What percentage of the time are you in charge of the information?
What percentage of the time are you the students in charge of the information?
Before you tell me it is easy for me to judge you, I need to tell you that I judge myself fairly harshly in answering those questions.
I don't think of my classroom as lecture, but I do spend plenty of time presenting what Marzano would call "procedural" knowledge. I want the students to know what buttons to press when in the software we use. In fact I spend so much time talking procedures that they don't nearly enough application time. How can they learn the "procedures" if we don't spent nearly enough time with the independent practice? It is a battle that I struggle with each week. At what point have I given the students enough knowledge/information that they can move to independent practice? Sadly, I don't know the answer to that question and mainly it is because the answer is different for different learners and I need a formative assessment to get a better sense of when they are ready to move forward.
So what say you, would you be able to survive your own class?
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