Is the goal of school compliance? Or learning?
Note: This is the first in a three-part series that explores the problems with compliance in our places of learning and how we can re-engage a generation that has never been more distracted and bored in school settings. This series is based off my new book, "Meaningful and Relevant: Engaging Learners In An Era of Distraction" and accompanying keynote and workshops.
If you are anything like me, your educational experience consisted of many lectures, notes, homework, tests, and papers.
Then, when I started teaching, I gave a lot of PowerPoint lectures, had my students take a lot of notes, and focused on rigorous tests and all kinds of papers.
Seemed to be a cycle.
I taught like some of my previous teachers taught.
Some students enjoyed this type of educational experience. Maybe enjoyed is too strong a word. But they played the game of school well, and this was the game they were used to and had mastered over the years.
Other students went through the motions. They knew this was what school looked like, and for them, it was a means to an end. If they just followed the directions and kept their heads down, they could focus on other things they were interested in while going through a formal educational experience.
And, of course, there were plenty of students who struggled in this setting. Many had labeled themselves unfairly early on in their schooling, based on experiences in which they did not do well in traditional, compliance-based education.
To be honest, I did try some projects and inquiry-based work early in my career. They were few and far between. Year 3 was when I realized I might be going through the motions myself, and I had an experience that really hit home.
Putting Myself in Their Shoes
We had a unique professional development opportunity in my third year. We got to shadow students for half a day and sit in some of their classes.
We were looking to change the school schedule, and this was an opportunity to get firsthand experience on the length of instructional time and the number of classes in a day, so we could compare it with what block scheduling might look like.
I didn’t think much of it and sat down for the first class of the day following a student I had coached in lacrosse when they were in middle school.
By the 30-minute mark in class, I was scanning the room to see what the other students were doing. We were still listening to the teacher, and we’d had one “Turn and Talk” so far.
Fast forward to three classes later.
I was in shock.
Not by the actual classes and what was going on.
But by a realization I wasn’t ready for.
My class was boring.
Or, at best, it was a show. Put on by me. That probably most of my students found boring and redundant.
My class was also difficult. What I was asking students to do every day in class and for homework, along with all of their other responsibilities for other classes, sports, home life, friends, etc., was overwhelming.
Defining Engagement
When I was searching for new ways to engage my students, I was initially lost in a sea of studies, definitions, and examples that were scattered across disciplines. Frustrated, I went to complain to a few veteran colleagues, who all had a good laugh. Then two of them pointed to Phillip Schlechty and the Center for Engagement’s research and work—and my life as a teacher changed for the better.
Schlechty’s work around engagement is one of the most enlightening and simple frameworks for educators to use. What I find fascinating about his levels of engagement is that I could see myself in the classroom (many times) working toward compliance instead of engagement.
The Schlechty Center on Engagement proceeds from a number of assumptions. The most critical of these are as follows:
The way school tasks and activities are designed introduces variances in the qualities that can be and are introduced into the work.
Variances in these qualities produce variances in the level of effort students are willing to invest in the task or activity.
Student decisions regarding the personal consequences of doing the task assigned or participating in the activity provided result in five different types of involvement in these tasks and activities. These are Engagement, Strategic Compliance, Ritual Compliance, Retreatism, and Rebellion.
Schlechty’s levels pair nicely with the 2012 definition of Professor Amy Reschly (University of Georgia) and Professor Sanda Christenson (University of Minnesota) in the Handbook of Research on Student Engagement:
Student engagement refers to the student’s active participation in academic and co-curricular or school-related activities and commitment to educational goals and learning. Engaged students find learning meaningful and are invested in their learning and future. It is a multi-dimensional construct that consists of behavioral (including academic), cognitive, and affective subtypes. Student engagement drives learning; requires energy and effort; is affected by multiple contextual influences; and can be achieved for all learners (pp. 816–817).
Engagement drives learning. What does compliance drive then?
As a teacher, it may be easier to work toward compliance. And most of us have been taught that compliance is a good thing. We’ve seen this ourselves as students. We’ve seen this in our own personal lives. We’ve seen this as employees. Compliance is almost always rewarded.
Compliance is easy to do, easy to teach, and easy to reward.
But when all we work toward is compliance, we don’t get anywhere near full engagement, or deep learning.
What Schlechty explained so well is the difference between compliance and engagement. In the above levels, the two factors that dictate whether a student is compliant or engaged are commitment and attention.
Schlechty defines engagement as an active process that “requires the students to be attentive as well as in attendance; it requires the students to be committed to the task and find some inherent value in what he or she is being asked to do.” In contrast, compliance merely involves students following directions without genuine interest or investment in their learning.
How do we design for engagement and learning, rather than compliance and going through the motions?
We've got an answer to that! The 10 Design Qualities.
The following framework outlines 10 design qualities that Schlecty's research has categorized for educators to create more engaging learning experiences:
Content and Substance: Ensure that what is being taught is meaningful and relevant to students.
Organization of Knowledge: Structure information in ways that align with various learning strategies and approaches.
Clear and Compelling Standards: Provide clear expectations and standards that students find personally compelling.
Product Focus: Link learning to tangible outcomes, performances, or exhibitions.
Protection from Adverse Consequences for Initial Failures: Create a safe environment where failure is seen as part of the learning process.
Affirmation of Performance: Recognize and celebrate student achievements and progress.
Affiliation: Foster a sense of belonging and community within the classroom.
Novelty and Variety: Incorporate diverse and innovative approaches to maintain student interest.
Choice: Provide opportunities for students to make decisions about their learning.
Authenticity: Connect learning tasks to real-world applications and student interests.
Practical Strategies for Implementing the Design Qualities
Content and Substance
Educators can make content more engaging by taking one or more of these actions:
· Conducting careful reviews of standards to determine essential content.
Providing a wide range of activities that allow students to work with content worth knowing and mastering.
Embedding less interesting content into high-interest activities and assignments.
Using a choice board is a perfect way to provide a variety of activities to either learn and consume the content, or to demonstrate understanding. Choice Boards give students options on how they jump into learning, and can be standards-based, lean into different technologies and resources, or simply provide an avenue for inquiry and interest connected to the content in your curriculum.
Organization of Knowledge
Teachers can improve engagement by looking at the following practices:
Taking student interests into account when developing units of work and designing assignments.
Varying instructional formats and modes of presentation.
Utilizing both physical and virtual spaces to offer meaningful learning opportunities.
Author of UDL Now!, Katie Novak (2016), explains how universal design for learning (UDL) can provide multiple modes of learning by varying formats and spaces for learning. Her analogy is one I share often: imagine you are hosting a dinner party or tailgate for 30 people. If everyone came over to your house and you offered one casserole dish—it could be gluten-free, vegetarian, or made to satisfy someone with a dietary restriction or a plain taste aversion—there would be plenty of folks who could not eat it. As host, you would find yourself as a short-order cook, trying to whip up new meals in the kitchen to meet the needs of your guests. A much better option would be to offer a buffet, or even host a potluck.
The same can happen in the classroom when we teach a one-size-fits-all lesson. We find ourselves having to differentiate like that short-order cook. However, if we were to provide a variety of intentional options at the start that could meet the needs of each student (like a buffet), we could pre-emptively serve everybody.
Clear and Compelling Standards
Teachers can make standards more engaging by ensuring students clearly understand what they are expected to do and how their work will be evaluated. While also, helping students see the personal value of meeting these standards. Product Focus
We can enhance engagement by taking the following actions:
Linking learning to products, performances, or exhibitions that students find meaningful.
Providing opportunities for students to lead and assist others in carrying out leadership functions.
In Ross Cooper and Erin Murphy’s book Project-Based Learning, the authors share three different project tracks that we can create in the classroom. The first would be an open-endedtrack on which the students demonstrate what they need to learn in whatever way they want. The second would be a problem track in which the students solve a problem given by the teacher or found by the students.
The final track focuses on the product. On the product track, the students create a product or contribute to an event. For example, elementary students might learn about force and motion by creating a pinball machine to demonstrate their understanding, or middle school students might create a public service announcement for a local recreation center to showcase their writing and speaking skills. In each case, the product (and learning process) is tied to the curriculum. Clearly connecting the standards to their products brings clarity to the learning and leads to conferencing opportunities for teachers and students.
Protection from Adverse Consequences
Create a safe learning environment by:
Treating failure as a normal part of the learning process. And, working directly with students to diagnose and correct the causes of failure.
In my class, we created an Epic Fail bulletin board, inspired by teachers from around the world doing Genius Hour and 20% time inquiry projects. The idea was simple. Each week, students would share out their biggest fail. We would talk, discuss, and support each other through the process. It turned into a weekly highlight for all our students and changed the culture of learning.
Choice
Increase student ownership in a few simple ways:
·1. Offering options for the ways in which students can demonstrate their mastery of learning goals.
2. Providing opportunities to select modes of presentation and means of acquiring information.
In our book Empower, John Spencer and I, thinking about student choice and ownership, asked, “What decisions am I making for my students that they could make for themselves?” Choice can lead to ownership, agency, and eventually engagement and empowerment and deeper learning. You can have choice in types of learning content, choice in pace, choice in documenting learning, choice in final learning products or performance tasks, and choice in how you reflect. Ultimately, it has to be done with a purpose and needs limits.
Authenticity
Make learning more relevant by:
Designing tasks that increase student ownership of the quality of results.
Ensuring that meeting standards has consequences that students care about.
In the Centennial School District, the students benefit from a myriad of partnerships. Each partnership brings a new authentic opportunity for learning and drives engagement because students create for real people and real situations instead of only for a teacher.
Whether it is the Shoprite located inside the High School run by the business students, or the Genetics of Cancer class that partners with the Fox Chase Cancer Center, learners get unique opportunities. Other examples include designing solutions for the MIT Bicycle team and a forensics class in which students solve crime scenes for a mid-term. Each of these partnerships is free, benefits both parties involved, and leads to relevant learning experiences due to authentic problems and audiences.
Overcoming Systemic Challenges
While implementing these design qualities, you may face resistance within compliance-focused systems. You also most likely already implement many of these design qualities already in your teaching and learning. Remember the following when shifting practice:
Start Small: Begin by incorporating one or two design qualities into existing lessons.
Document Success: Keep records of improved student engagement and learning outcomes to support your approach.
Collaborate: Work with like-minded colleagues to share ideas and support each other’s efforts.
Communicate: Engage administrators and parents in discussions about the benefits of engagement-focused learning.
By intentionally applying Schlechty’s design qualities, we can create more engaging learning experiences, even within systems that prioritize compliance. Which, let's be honest, is most of our systems in education.
These strategies not only increase student motivation and participation but also lead to deeper, more meaningful learning outcomes.
This does not mean we abandon all compliance. It is a necessary part of a school and learning experience sometimes. However, it means we don't focus on that as an end goal, but instead engagement which leads to deeper learning.