Читать книгу Launching and Consolidating Unstoppable Learning - Alexander McNeece - Страница 8

Foreword

by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

How many times has someone visited a classroom and noticed that some (or all) of the students were not engaged? But how does that visitor, or any person, measure engagement? Often the focus on engagement is behavioral, and students who are looking out the window or fidgeting in their chair are thought of as unengaged. We think that engagement also includes a cognitive dimension, not just a behavioral one. It may be that the student looking out the window is deeply thinking about the rich mathematics task that the teacher has posed to the group and is near a breakthrough. This classroom visitor would never know unless he or she interacted with the student. So, we are very cautious about classroom observation tools that have observers stand in the back of the room examining student behavior. Engagement is much more complex than that.

And engagement is important. In fact, there is strong evidence that engagement precedes learning. Simply said, when students engage, they have a chance of learning more. Who doesn’t want to get students to engage? If you do want students to engage, this book is for you.

We say that because Alexander McNeece has taken on two very important topics that increase the likelihood that students will cognitively engage in learning: (1) launching and (2) consolidating. Taken together, educators can use these two constructs in classrooms to facilitate cognitive engagement. And, as McNeece notes, there is a relationship between cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement. But we’ll let you read the book to learn more about those concepts.

For now, we’d like to focus on the two main approaches that comprise this book: (1) launching learning and (2) consolidating learning.

Launching Learning

First, launching learning includes a collection of strategies that hook students into learning. And there are all kinds of different students that need to be hooked into learning. Some of our students are compliant, and they do what the teacher says, even if they really are not learning much. Others are resistant to learning, and their behavior frustrates the adults who try to teach them. And still others are simply not paying attention to know what is going on in the class to see if they might want to learn something. As educators, we don’t get to pick the students we teach. We teach them all. And launching learning is the first step in inviting students into the lesson. There are a host of different ways to launch a lesson, but the learning has to be relevant for students. In fact, we often say that the two most important aspects of a teacher’s job (which are also almost never in the job description) are:

• Making content interesting

• Developing humane, growth-producing relationships with students

When these two are in place, students are much more likely to engage. When the content is interesting, and they trust the teacher to guide them in their learning, students take risks and focus on their learning. As a reminder, for most students it’s easier to be known as the bad kid rather than the kid who doesn’t know. For them to put themselves out there, risking mistakes, learning has to be relevant; and they have to trust the learning environment.

Here’s an example from our own lives. Not too long ago, we were at an unnamed educational conference. We were excited to hear a specific session. We even got there early, forgoing the long coffee line, to get good seats. The presenter was an excellent speaker. The digital slides were sharp and clear. But there weren’t any connections made between the audience and the content. We decided that it wasn’t what we expected or needed, so we left. Checking the conference app, we noticed that there was a session nearby that also seemed relevant to our current work, and we traveled to that room. We missed the introduction and the objectives for the session, but it didn’t matter because the presenter regularly returned to the session’s purpose, reminding us where he was within the flow of the presentation, and he took time to make connections between the attendee’s experiences and their work. When the session was over, we realized that we had each taken several pages of notes on our tablets. Obviously, the content was relevant and engaging.

It’s not that a “bad” teacher led the first session and a “good” teacher conducted the second. They both had skills and experience. They both knew their content. One just made the learning relevant for us and made connections with us as learners, while the other did not. That’s why we suggest that making content relevant or interesting is one of the most important things a teacher can do, and why we think that this should be included in teachers’ job descriptions.

Consolidating Learning

The second area that comprises this book is consolidating learning. Like launching learning, this is a critical aspect of the classroom. It’s important for educators to motivate students and get them hooked, but educators also need to help students create opportunities to make connections and see relationships between ideas, concepts, and skills. Most often, students consolidate their learning with other students, which is why we are such strong proponents of collaborative learning. When students work together, interacting with each other, using academic language (especially argumentation), they are much more likely to actually remember their learning. It’s not just that they have a chance to apply the information, which they do. It’s more than that. Tasks that allow students to consolidate learning provide an opportunity to hear the thinking of others and to clarify their own thinking.

What we appreciate about, and think is unique about, this book is that McNeece profiles several types of students and shows how launching and consolidating tasks invite those students into learning; or to use the language introduced earlier, to engage. Yes, there are any number of tools useful in inviting students into learning and for helping them practice and apply their skills, but then some students are left behind and then blamed for not learning when their teachers use the tools too generically. Rather than simply say that learning is differentiated, McNeece shows how to ensure that students commit to their learning, and become engrossed, absorbed, and captivated by the experiences they have in class. We know that you will enjoy visiting the classrooms that McNeece profiles and accessing multiple strategies that we can all apply in our own classrooms and schools. Enjoy!