Student engagement has primarily and historically focused upon increasing achievement, positive behaviors, and a sense of belonging in students so they might remain in school. Over time, student engagement strategies were further developed and more broadly implemented as a way to manage classroom behaviors. More recently, student engagement has been built around the hopeful goal of enhancing all students’ abilities to learn how to learn or to become lifelong learners in a knowledge-based society. Student engagement has become both a strategic process for learning and an accountability outcome unto itself.

Here is the list of common elements for improving student’s engagement:

Interaction. Students want stronger relationships with teachers, with each other, and with their communities – locally, provincially, nationally and globally. They want their teachers to know them as people, and how they learn, Furthermore, they want to take into account what they understand and what they misunderstand, and use this knowledge as a starting place to guide their continued learning. Students also want their teachers to establish learning environment that build interdependent relationships and that promote and crate a strong culture of learning.

Exploration. Just as we want to learn about the Web by clicking our own path through cyberspace, we want to learn about our subjects through exploration. It’s not enough to accept the professor’s word. We want to be challenged to reach our own conclusions and find our own results. The need to explore is implicit in our desire to learn and explore. It is the same with our students.

Relevancy. One common prerequisite for engaging learners is “relevancy.” Today’s learners ask that their learning apply to real-life scenarios whenever possible as opposed to being theoretical and text-based. Working with authentic problems or community issues engages students and builds a sense of purpose to the learning experience. “The work students undertake also needs to be relevant, meaningful, and authentic – in other words, it needs to be worthy of their time and attention”.

Multimedia & Technology. When it is simply not possible to move past the classroom to speak with and learn from experts in the field, technology helps students interact globally with people and events. Technology brings learners accessible and relevant subject matter and experts and is a tool for engaged learning. Both students and teachers issued a common call for new tools in the classroom toolbox, expanding beyond standard computer stations and overhead projectors to

facilitate deeper research and learning and to build relationships among learners and experts.

By: Cristina A. Mariano | Bacong Elementary School | Limay, Bataan