This week, the American Psychological Association’s education blog published an article of mine about how teachers can increase student engagement in the classroom. As a professor, I can understand the temptation to dumb down material, so that students “get it.” I also understand the rationale to make work easier in order to get students to be more engaged. “Maybe,” we think, “my students are acting bored and uninterested because the material is over their head. Perhaps all I have to do is make the workload easier, and they’ll pop to life!”
Unfortunately, according to a recent article in the Journal of Educational Psychology, this rationale is likely to produce the exact opposite of our intention. When students feel challenged, they are more engaged in the satisfying act of problem-solving, as long as they are given everything they need to meet the challenge.
This is a fine line we need to walk here. If we make the material too easy, our students won’t find it valuable. If we make the material overly difficult, our students will disengage to protect their self-esteem from the failure they anticipate. Right there in the middle – the sweet spot – is the place where students desire to excel, and where they put forth their best effort.
In my teaching, the goal I have is to be perceived as having high expectations, challenging my students to reach beyond what is easy for them. If that goal of mine is going to be fair, I have to make sure I give them what they need to meet the challenges I give them. Lectures provide important terms, concepts, and theories. Activities give students opportunities to apply and integrate what I’ve taught in ways that allow for creativity. Just recently, I’ve begun creating and using Kahoots in my classes. These little competitive learning games can be played after each major concept, and they give students some immediate feedback about what they understand and what they need to review, in order to be ready for upcoming summative assessments.
I look forward to your comments and thoughts about this article of mine, which you can read on Psych Learning Curve.
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Originally published on Dr. John Rich
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