Lori Meadows
Student engagement is a key component of the learning experience. University teaching can often feel impersonal and detached, so it is important to build a strong teacher-student relationship. This can be achieved through direct communication, allowing student contributions to shape discussions, and incorporating activities that promote active learning. Students are more likely to engage when they understand the importance of a lecture and its relevance to their future. Instructors can also encourage engagement by incorporating visual aids, combining disciplines, and providing opportunities for group work and presentations. Additionally, addressing the fear of failure and judgment, offering a range of mediums, and filling dead time with low-order activities can further enhance student engagement.
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What You'll Learn
- Make it relevant: Show how topics relate to students' lives, careers and the real world
- Use stories: Help students understand concepts by relating them to stories and anecdotes
- Student-led learning: Encourage students to contribute and shape discussions
- Active learning: Use activities, group work, and problem-solving to engage students
- Address fears: Recognise and address students' fear of failure and judgement
Make it relevant: Show how topics relate to students' lives, careers and the real world
Making the curriculum relevant to students' lives is a key part of engaging them in their learning. Students are more likely to be engaged when they understand the importance of a lesson and how it relates to their future careers and the real world.
Firstly, it is important to address the question "When am I ever going to use this?" in order to show students how the content is relevant to their lives beyond university. This can be done by using anecdotes, case studies, and real-life examples from outside the classroom. For instance, if you are teaching mathematics, you could ask students to chart their performance in a video game over a week or calculate a projected number of Instagram followers.
Secondly, it is beneficial to combine disciplines rather than teaching subjects in isolation. For example, some medical schools have moved away from teaching physiology and anatomy in separate classes and instead study organ systems, where students learn the physiology and anatomy associated with each system. This integrated curriculum can make the learning more engaging and help students understand the relevance of the topics.
Thirdly, incorporating stories, analogies, and personal experiences into lectures can help students process concepts in their own words and move past rote memorization. This technique allows students to understand concepts in a way that is relevant to them and makes the lesson more memorable.
Finally, it is important to build a strong teacher-student relationship to increase engagement. Students are more likely to be engaged when they have a good relationship with the instructor and feel comfortable asking questions. Office hours can be a great way to foster this relationship and allow students to ask in-depth questions or explore points of confusion or interest that cannot be fully addressed in class. Additionally, group work and class discussions can help build rapport and encourage meaningful analysis of course content.
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Use stories: Help students understand concepts by relating them to stories and anecdotes
Using stories and anecdotes is a great way to engage students and help them understand concepts. This technique helps students move past rote memorization and encourages them to process course concepts in their own words.
To start, you can ask students to paraphrase a story or definition, explain a concept in their own words, or provide analogies and real-life examples to illustrate a course concept. For example, if you are teaching a concept in psychology, you could share a story or anecdote from your own life or the lives of other people that illustrates the concept. This could be a story about a time when you experienced a particular psychological phenomenon, such as the Stroop effect, or a story about someone else's experience with it.
Additionally, you can encourage students to create their own stories or anecdotes that relate to the concepts being taught. This can be done through writing or speaking activities. For instance, you could ask students to write a story or create a video that applies a psychological concept to their own lives or the lives of people they know. This helps students develop their creative and critical thinking skills while also demonstrating their understanding of the material.
Furthermore, you can use stories and anecdotes as a way to build a positive classroom community and increase student engagement. Sharing personal stories and experiences can help students feel more connected to their instructors and peers, fostering a sense of trust and belonging in the classroom. This can be especially beneficial when teaching sensitive or complex topics, as it can create a safe and supportive environment for students to explore these topics.
Instructors can also use stories and sequencing activities to help students understand the structure and components of a narrative. By identifying the beginning, middle, and end of a story, students can improve their comprehension and summarization skills. This technique can be applied to a variety of subjects, including social studies, where students can create timelines of important milestones or events.
Overall, using stories and anecdotes is a powerful tool for engaging students and helping them understand and apply concepts. By relating course material to personal stories and experiences, instructors can create a more interactive and meaningful learning environment that fosters student engagement and deepens their understanding of the subject matter.
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Student-led learning: Encourage students to contribute and shape discussions
Student-led learning is an educational approach that prioritises self-directed learning, creativity, and discovery over rote memorisation and traditional lecture-style teaching. It encourages students to incorporate their interests and projects within a set of broad guidelines. This approach gives teachers more time to guide and support students as they explore and engage with the lesson.
To encourage student-led learning, educators should strive to create a safe and inclusive physical and emotional classroom environment. This can be achieved by making the space feel welcoming and positive, encouraging kindness, and incorporating music into lessons. The goal is to foster an environment where students feel safe and comfortable working independently and sharing their experiences with their peers.
When implementing student-led learning, it is essential to give students choices and a sense of agency over their learning. This can be done by providing options for different activities, such as group work or solo work, and allowing students to choose the final product for assessments, as long as certain criteria are met. Additionally, seeking periodic feedback from students on the pace of delivery can help ensure they feel involved and engaged.
To further promote student-led discussions, educators can use a variety of prompts and inquiry-based learning techniques. For example, students can be asked to reflect on their experiences of feeling valued in the school community and how this can be extended to ensure every student feels included. Another strategy is to incorporate coaching into student partnerships, where students are assigned a "coaching partner" to work with throughout a unit, supporting and challenging each other's ideas.
Student-led learning and discussions have the power to transform the learning experience, fostering critical thinking, empathy, and a deeper understanding of the material. By giving students the opportunity to lead, educators can be astounded by their capabilities and the rich insights that emerge from these discussions.
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Active learning: Use activities, group work, and problem-solving to engage students
Active learning is a method of teaching that involves students in the knowledge construction process. It is centred around the diverse learning needs of students and encourages them to apply their learning to different problems and contexts. Active learning can be facilitated through various activities, group work, and problem-solving techniques.
Activities
Instructors can design activities that are tailored to specific learning outcomes, especially for topics that students typically find confusing. It is important to clearly explain the relevance of these activities to the learning objectives as students may not always make this connection on their own. For example, instructors can project a multiple-choice question onto a classroom screen and ask students to respond using clickers. After discussing the question in small groups, the instructor can project the bar graph of responses and explain the correct answer. This technique helps students feel involved in the process of accumulating and synthesizing information.
Group Work
Group work can be an effective way to engage students in active learning. Instructors can build accountability for group work by offering participation points, which show students that their contributions are valued. For example, students can be asked to upload a photo of their group's worksheet or turn in a response to a short writing prompt. Instructors and teaching assistants should also move around the classroom during group work to answer questions and interact with students, allowing them to gain insight into the students' thought processes.
Problem-Solving
Problem-based learning involves presenting students with a scenario that requires them to formulate questions, analyze evidence, connect it to pre-existing theories, derive conclusions, and reflect on their learning. For instance, students can be given a physical procedure to perform, such as preparing a specimen slide for a microscope, or an analytic activity like debating the pros and cons of an issue. This approach fosters understanding rather than mere memorization of facts and gives students autonomy over their learning journey.
Overall, active learning enhances the student learning experience by providing multiple avenues for engagement, including thinking, discussing, investigating, and creating. It is important to consistently incorporate these strategies into the classroom to ensure students are actively participating in their education.
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Address fears: Recognise and address students' fear of failure and judgement
Addressing students' fear of failure and judgement is a crucial aspect of fostering engagement in university settings. Here are some strategies to recognise and tackle these fears:
Recognising Fears
Firstly, it's important to acknowledge that fear of failure is prevalent among university students and can be a significant barrier to engagement. This fear often stems from equating task failure with personal failure, leading to heightened anxiety and insecurity. Students may fear negative consequences such as feelings of shame, incompetence, or not meeting their own high expectations. Recognising these fears is the first step towards addressing them.
Creating a Safe Environment
Instructors can play a pivotal role in creating a safe and supportive classroom environment. Encouraging peer interactions and group work can help students feel less isolated in their fears. Establishing respectful peer review norms and providing feedback that reinforces the value of peer input can build a collaborative atmosphere. Additionally, sharing stories, anecdotes, and real-life examples can make concepts more relatable and help students move beyond rote memorisation.
Reframing Failure
Reframing the perception of failure is essential. Remind students that failure is a natural part of life and learning. Encourage them to view failure as an opportunity for growth, resilience, and course correction. Highlight the importance of experimentation and risk-taking in the university experience. Help students understand that their worth as individuals is not defined by their academic achievements.
Encouragement and Motivation
Use praise and encouragement as powerful tools to motivate students. Provide feedback that recognises their efforts, even when they might not have achieved the desired outcome. This positive reinforcement can help students feel valued and reduce the intensity of their fears. Additionally, help students find their "why" by connecting academic success with personal goals and aspirations.
Addressing Judgement
To address fears of judgement, consider the types of questions you ask. Open-ended and engagement-based questions that invite multiple perspectives can reduce the fear of giving a "wrong" answer. These types of questions encourage deeper understanding and more interesting discussions. Also, provide opportunities for students to share their thoughts and present their work in low-stakes ways, such as sitting down while presenting or sharing within smaller groups.
Recognising and addressing students' fears of failure and judgement is an ongoing process. By creating a supportive and understanding environment, instructors can help students build the confidence needed to engage actively in their university studies.
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Frequently asked questions
University teaching can often feel impersonal and detached. Make a special effort to get to know your students. A solid teacher-student relationship is vital to learning. You can also ask students about their expectations at the beginning of a course and try to meet them.
No lecture should feel like a routine transference of information. Explain the 'why' behind each lecture and show how the topic is relevant to students' university experience and future career prospects. You can also use stories, anecdotes, and real-life examples to illustrate concepts.
Good discussions rarely happen spontaneously. Prepare ahead of time to set a clear focus and parameters. Let students know that it's ok to disagree with others and with you. You can also combine presentations with group work to make students feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts.
Fill any "dead time" in your lessons with low-order activities to hold students' attention. These should be quick, easy, and require minimal follow-up. For example, you could ask students to reflect on something and then discuss it with a partner.
Combine multiple types of questions to generate discussion and check for comprehension. Start with an open-ended question to invite engagement, then ask more fact-based follow-up questions. You can also use peer review to increase engagement, but make sure to explain the benefits and set norms and expectations first.
