Conclusion
Johnmarshall Reeve writes that engagement is reflected in active and/or reflective involvement. (Reeve, 2004) To take it a step further he writes, “Disengaged people, in contrast, show their passivity by being apathetic, distracted, half-hearted, helpless, or burned out.” And, “Disengaged people [...] show their passivity by allowing external forces outside their personal control to regulate their task involvement.” (Reeve, 2004) According to Reeve, a teacher is able to tell which students are engaged not only by looking at who is working on the task at hand but by also highlighting those that are actively finding excuses not to do the work. Students who are engaged overcome obstacles and have a willingness to take part in the learning process instead of just being recipients of knowledge. This is a very broad idea because it is still possible to have students who are disengaged, yet understand how the education system works and fall inside these parameters. The idea must be narrowed even more. To boil it down further, students who “[…] are motivated to engage in school ‘select tasks at the border of their competencies’” (Brewster, 2000) and are actively looking to overcome obstacles. Engaged students are encouraged to push themselves to their maximum potential to then find what their new potential is or can be. As explained in one fashion or another, an engaged student is an active participant in the learning process.
After reading literature dating back to the early 20th Century (a true reflection of how long people have been grappling with the subject of student engagement) and performing my own research at Northeast High School, I have learned a simple truth: there is no single way to assess student engagement. Evidence of student engagement in the classroom is so diverse that no one method of assessment can ever be accurate enough to quantify and/or qualify it. The more research I did on genuine student engagement, the more questions I was confronted with. Is it possible to assess engagement on the communal level (the entire class) and the individual level at the same time? Is it possible to have all students, regardless of learner type, be engaged at all times?
In a society which tries to simplify everything down to the nth degree, assessing evidence of genuine student engagement couldn’t have a simpler answer but more extensive conclusion; evidence of genuine student engagement inside and outside the classroom can only be gauged through established relationships. By this I mean that an educator can look at one student who is actively participating in class and one who is not and based solely on physical evidence of engagement, be absolutely wrong about which student is genuinely engaged. Physical evidence, while a good indicator for active students, cannot be used for reflective students. And on the flip side, if an educator based engagement on non-physical evidence such as seeking assistance after class, the active participator would be at a severe disadvantage. This is why a heavy value must be placed on building relationships.
I entered this inquiry project thinking that by the end of my research, through both personal research and literature reviews, that I would have a simple, quaint answer I could tell people about: (1) How to create environments that foster genuine student engagement and (2) How to assess genuine student engagement. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Through this research I learned that creating environments that foster genuine student engagement are just as important as assessing engagement. I learned that there is no single way to foster and assess engagement since all students are different. I learned that the student who has the most to learn in any classroom, is me.
After reading literature dating back to the early 20th Century (a true reflection of how long people have been grappling with the subject of student engagement) and performing my own research at Northeast High School, I have learned a simple truth: there is no single way to assess student engagement. Evidence of student engagement in the classroom is so diverse that no one method of assessment can ever be accurate enough to quantify and/or qualify it. The more research I did on genuine student engagement, the more questions I was confronted with. Is it possible to assess engagement on the communal level (the entire class) and the individual level at the same time? Is it possible to have all students, regardless of learner type, be engaged at all times?
In a society which tries to simplify everything down to the nth degree, assessing evidence of genuine student engagement couldn’t have a simpler answer but more extensive conclusion; evidence of genuine student engagement inside and outside the classroom can only be gauged through established relationships. By this I mean that an educator can look at one student who is actively participating in class and one who is not and based solely on physical evidence of engagement, be absolutely wrong about which student is genuinely engaged. Physical evidence, while a good indicator for active students, cannot be used for reflective students. And on the flip side, if an educator based engagement on non-physical evidence such as seeking assistance after class, the active participator would be at a severe disadvantage. This is why a heavy value must be placed on building relationships.
I entered this inquiry project thinking that by the end of my research, through both personal research and literature reviews, that I would have a simple, quaint answer I could tell people about: (1) How to create environments that foster genuine student engagement and (2) How to assess genuine student engagement. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Through this research I learned that creating environments that foster genuine student engagement are just as important as assessing engagement. I learned that there is no single way to foster and assess engagement since all students are different. I learned that the student who has the most to learn in any classroom, is me.