Throughout the process of my inquiry, I have been researching student engagement in great detail. I began my research assuming I had a good grasp of the general definition of engagement, and what that means with regards to being a student. While perusing Edutopia for articles about student engagement, I stumbled upon an article written by Dr.Nicolás James. The title of the article is ” Golden Rules for Engaging Student in learning activities.” Within the article he talks about student engagement but breaks engagement down into 3 distinct sections, Emotional engagement (Positive/Negative Feelings), Behavioural engagement ( Good/Bad Behaviour), and Cognitive Engagement (Student Thinking). The most moving thing I took from his article is that idea that students can be behaviourally engaged and emotionally engaged, but not be cognitively engaged. He later begins to discuss 6 things educators can do to more effectively engage their students. The two that stood out to me were to make the lesson/activity meaningful, and providing autonomy and autonomy support. I will elaborate more on these in my inquiry research paper. Find it on my website (451 Inquiry Project).
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/golden-rules-for-engaging-students-nicolas-pino-james
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