A Powerful Formula to Increase Student Engagement

Have you ever wanted to increase student engagement? If you answered no you might be a superhuman teacher, and if so make yourself known because we want to meet you!

It is more fun and less stressful to teach students who are actively engaged. When your students are engaged, there are fewer behavior challenges. Discussions are fluid and energyzing. Your lessons run smoothly and you accomplish more in less time. Students will complete tasks and turn in their assignments. They will also likely remember more of what they learned. Chances are, students are also having more fun and enjoying learning!

What’s not to love about that?

How can you increase student engagement?

We have written about many strategies that increase student engagement. You can check out the links to some of those posts at the end of this article.

In this post, we are going to share three things you can address in order to increase student engagement.

In his best-selling book Drive, author Daniel Pink talks about three things that determine whether or not a person is motivated to do something: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

What does this look like when we apply it to teaching and learning?

Here a powerful formula to increase student engagement:

Give students some autonomy.

Autonomy means that students need to have some say in what they are doing or learning. They don’t need total control, but they need to make some of their own choices. This might be setting their own learning goals, choosing which learning materials to use, or choosing between several types of projects. You might give them a choice in partners or groups, a choice in tasks, or a choice in which book they read.

Students will still need some sort of accountability, but giving them some say in what they do will greatly increase the chances that they will do it.

Daniel Pink offers this advice: Control leads to compliance, autonomy leads to engagement.

Engagement also leads to mastery. Think about it, did you ever really master anything without being engaged in it? We’ve all had the experience of memorizing something for a test, only to forget it the minute we walk out the door. That is not mastery.

Build in the potential for mastery.

Mastery is the ability to get better and better at something that matters. Our educational standards require students to master skills. What can teachers do to increase mastery?

Make sure tasks are not too easy or too challenging.

Give students time to get into flow, time where they can focus and work on a task uninterrupted.

Make work look like play. There is often joy in the pursuit of a goal. Have you ever been so involved in something that you lost all track of time? Learning and work and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive!

Encourage a growth mindset where students believe that with effort, they can get better and better at something.

Make sure students understand the purpose of what they are learning.

When students understand the purpose for their learning, they are more motivated to learn. Students are less likely to engage when they view the work as a waste of time. When students can answer the question, “why is this important?” they understand the purpose of the lesson.

Tell students the objectives of the lesson. Share the the outcomes. Show them the learning standard. However you do it, make sure students know what they are going to learn. Tell them and post it on the board. Use this prompt:

Today you are going to learn to…

Then, make sure students understand how they will use this informtion or why it is important.

This piece creates relevance. When students understand how they might use something, or how it will help them in the future, or how it will improve their skills such as critical thinking or the ability to analyze, they will be more likely to buy in to the activity. Use this prompt:

Here are some of the ways you will use this information or skill in the future…

Or, better yet, ask students how they think the information or skill will be useful in their future.

You can increase student engagement by paying attention to autonomy, mastery and purpose.

It is a powerful formula to increase student engagement.

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