First off, let me just say that after several courses with LSU Ed Tech I am a HUGE fan of Weston Kieschnick (despite the fact that I cannot say his last name correctly to save my life). With that being said, when I realized this reflection was about his take on sparking student engagement I was immediately hooked.
Right off the bat Weston makes a comment about the misconceptions of engagement being synonymous to fun. This was one of those comments that I wish could be played over and over and over again in professional developments, staff meetings, etc. Sure fun is a great addition to learning, but that doesn't mean that curiosity, participation, and perseverance can't happen without it. So what should I consider about this theory was Weston briefly discusses? How might it impact my instructional design theories and practices? First, what Mr. Kieschnick outlines as the roadmap to engagement is not necessarily new material, but much more well defined. Most lesson plan templates I have worked with are pretty similar whether we look at the Gradual Release Model, Backwards Design Model, etc. There is a clear attention getter or hook to gain interest, transition to the mini-lesson or "I do" modeling and then the activity that can be a "we do" or even a "you do". This is really where the meat and potatoes are with Dr. Hattie's strategies and use of ed tech, but in my opinion this is where teachers can really get lost. When we talked about the Bold School Framework in previous courses one of the main components is ensuring that the technology is not what's driving the instruction. There are teachers (that I love dearly) that will plan their yearly summative observation around a piece of technology to spruce things up as if it were a dog and pony show. Then data comes around for assessments and no one can "figure out" what the disconnection is for the students and the content even though this teacher plays Kahoot! and shows only YouTube video lessons four out of the five days a week (not knocking either, but they are great resources when used correctly). They are not creating meaningful memories that are tied to positive emotions. Sure, learning how to multiply fractions with unlike denominators is the absolute worst 5th grade math topic to teach and learn, but is it the worst because of our attitudes as educators because of the "old school way", and how we set up students in the lessons by not using this engagement atlas that Weston pretty clearly lays out for us. To circle back to how I allow for this to impact my instructional design and practices, well it has really shifted my paradigms in the sense that, we can't take "well it's just different with this generation/group of kids" as an answer. We have the roadmap, but when our own professional developments are sit and get, are we truly grasping this engagement piece we are pushing for?
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