Schlechty's Work

Student Engagement - at the Instructional Core:

• Articles from the Schlechty Center 
• TED Talk:  Liz Coleman's idea is that higher education is an active pursuit -- a performing art. Her vision calls for lots of one-on-one interactions between professor and student, deep engagement with primary sources, highly individual majors, and the destruction of the traditional academic department. It's a lofty goal that takes plenty of hard work to keep on course. 
• TED Talk:  Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance
• National Geo Article about the Teen Brain!  "Beautiful Brains
  Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers act the way they do? Viewed through the eyes of evolution, their most exasperating traits may be the key to success as adults."
  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text

Teacher:

• A lesson study http://www.shearonforschools.com/Lesson%20Study%20Motion.htm
• Engaged Students - how to create them
• Strategies to take them from On-Task to Engaged.  (ASCD Blog Post)
• 7 Ways to go from On - Task to Engaged:
• So, how do we ramp up both on-task behavior and real, meaningful engagement for our students? Here are seven easy ways to increase the likelihood that students are both engaged and on-task:
• 1. Teach students about the process of focus, attention, and engagement. Tell them about how the brain works and help them to recognize the characteristics of real engagement.
  2. When designing objectives, lessons, and activities, consider the task students are being asked to complete. Is the task, behavior, or activity one that is relevant, interactive, and meaningful, or is it primarily designed to keep kids busy and quiet?
  3. Ask your students about their perspectives, ideas, and experiences. What do they find engaging, real, and meaningful? 
  4. Create authentic reasons for learning activities. Connect the objectives, activities, and tasks to those things that are interesting and related to student experiences.
  5. Provide choice in the way students learn information and express their knowledge.
  6. Incorporate positive emotions including curiosity, humor, age-appropriate controversy, and inconsequential competition. (Inconsequential competition is described by Marzano [2007] as competition in the spirit of fun with no rewards, punishments or anything of "consequence" attached.)
  7. Allow for creativity and multisensory stimulation (think art, drama, role play, and movement).
  Have you noticed that on-task does not always mean engaged? How do you achieve both?
  
  
  Post submitted by Bryan Harris, director of professional development for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Arizona. He is the author of Battling Boredom, published by Eye On Education. More information can be found at http://www.bryan-harris.com/.

Student:

• The research is in: Rewards seem to undermine thoughtful, creative classroom practice.  More...if the makers of educational policies worried half as much about making what's taught interesting and relevant as making it count, our children would be happier as well as productive.  Read more in "Gold Star Junkies"
• Ted Talk - Speaking at a London girls' school, Michelle Obama makes a passionate, personal case for each student to take education seriously. It is this new, brilliant generation, she says, that will close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be.

Curric:

• Rigor and Relevance Programming...interesting powerpoint.