Written by Ryan Griffin, Department of Electronics
Engaging students and promoting learning can be a very difficult task and there are countless theories and methods on how best encourage students to learn and be involved. [1 – 3] In my own experience utilizing varied teaching approaches, being approachable and making students work for the answer while asking questions have been the most successful methods.
There exists a very broad spectrum of students with strengths and weaknesses varied over the eight intelligences. [4] Trying to pique the interest and encourage learning of such a broad group can pose a considerable challenge. One commonality however is likely amongst the entire group. They’ve all spent, and continue to spend, a considerable portion of their time using social media and watching videos on YouTube. [5] One of the most successful tools that I have found while attempting to encourage students to have completed their prelabs ahead of time, was to produce an introductory video to the lab and have it available online. These videos provided students with a sense of what they would be accomplishing and were particularly useful for visual learners who sometime struggle to transfer discussion or literature into practice. To encourage the whole group to watch the video, hints were embedded to help them solve lab questions.
Another method which was attempted to engage students was to prepare an online forum where students could seek help from TAs and from one another. This service was met with varying success depending on the group of students. One particular group made excellent use of the forums and it encouraged considerable discussion, while another group made little use of it at all. This provided evidence that not all approaches to encourage student engagement will be successful and that the approach needs to be tailored to the particular group. More information on electronic learning methods can be found in [6].
When trying to encourage students to be engaged in a classroom setting, making yourself approachable is important to fostering a positive learning environment. Students should not feel afraid or ashamed to ask questions. An excellent article discussing approachability and student engagement can be found in [7].
Lastly, now that you have a group of engaged students who are working hard and asking questions, before you give them a straight answer, make them work for it. It has been my experience that a student is far more likely to remember an answer if they’ve gone through the thought process and were able to figure out the answer for themselves. Of course some students will need to be led step by step, but I’ve observed a visible sense of pride and accomplishment when a student is able to answer their own question. A second advantage to having students work for an answer is that it encourages students who would otherwise ask questions incessantly, in hopes that you’ll simply do the work for them, to think for themselves as completing the task on their own would often be faster than trying to scrounge all the answers from the TA.
What is important to take from this article is that a diverse set of teaching methods should be used to encourage a broad spectrum of students to be engaged. High technology tools such as YouTube, forums and social media can be effective methods. Methods should be adaptable to the particular group of students and finally, in my experience, approachability and leading students through their own questions are the best methods to engage students and promote learning.
References
- Adam C. Carle, David Jaffee & Deborah Miller. Engaging college science students and changing academic achievement with technology: A quasi-experimental preliminary investigation. Computers & Education, Volume 52, Issue 2, February 2009, Pages 376-380, ISSN 0360-1315, 10.1016/j.compedu.2008.09.005.
- Pu-Shih Daniel Chen, Amber D. Lambert & Kevin R. Guidry. Engaging online learners: The impact of Web-based learning technology on college student engagement. Computers & Education, Volume 54, Issue 4, May 2010, Pages 1222-1232, ISSN 0360-1315, 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.11.008.
- Cyril Brom, Michal Preuss & Daniel Klement. Are educational computer micro-games engaging and effective for knowledge acquisition at high-schools? A quasi-experimental study. Computers & Education, Volume 57, Issue 3, November 2011, Pages 1971-1988, ISSN 0360-1315, 10.1016/j.compedu.2011.04.007.
- Howard Gardner. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. New York: Basic Books. 1999. ISBN: 978-0465026111.
- Terry Judd & Gregor Kennedy. A five-year study of on-campus Internet use by undergraduate biomedical students, Computers & Education. Volume 55, Issue 4, December 2010, Pages 1564-1571, ISSN 0360-1315, 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.06.022.
- Dave McKenney. Online Teaching with Synchronous Learning Tools. TA Talk Ezine, Carleton University, Sample Article, Available Online, Accessed: March 2012.
- Graham Fraser. On the Level: Engaging students by being more approachable. TA Talk Ezine, Carleton University, Sample Article, Available Online , Accessed: March 2012.