Great lesson plans: The dance of student engagement is more of a two-step than a tango

The daily dance around student engagement and lesson planning has been made much too complex in recent years, and I’m not sure why. We have countless definitions of what engagement is and what it is not, and we have varied opinions on how we should rate this concept when we observe a classroom lesson. Let’s be clear that true engagement is a highly advanced instructional skill and is much easier said than done. Still, I don’t think the definition itself is as complex as we are making it out to be. For me, I prefer to think of student engagement as synonymous with “thinking” or “learning,” and with a nod to things like student interest, choice and real-world application. The real caution here is that…

The connection between thinking and speaking is real, sort of like the connection between dating and holding hands. I say this because there is really no way to be thoughtful about something or understanding of something if you are not verbalizing it somehow, usually by talking to someone around you. Of course, this replaying of the things we know comes in other forms that we find in schools like debate, journaling, and even note-taking. No matter how it plays out, we simply cannot complete the comprehension loop if students are not required to verbalize their learning somehow. This is a critical reality for teachers if we are ever going to realize the dream of equity for all students in acquiring the next-generation skills that they…