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” and even “learning,” with a nod to things like student interest, choice, and real-world application. The real caution here is that…
