Typical question and answer sessions allow students to tune out important classroom interactions, and traditional lectures leave most students functioning as ‘listening objects.’ To truly engage all learners, instructors need to use a more intentional approach to student engagement. In this online course, participants will explore the societal and personal costs of disengagement and the importance of higher-order thinking in creating environments that meaningfully engage students in content learning.
 

This course will introduce participants to practical techniques for cognitively engaging students during lessons. These include the uses of on-the-spot techniques, hold-ups, total participation techniques (TPTs) that involve movement, and TPTs for guiding and supporting students in their note taking. Participants will explore essential elements in building a TPT-conducive classroom, where students feel free to share with minimal risks. Finally, participants will analyze the cognitive engagement that is present in a classroom lesson as they apply their new understandings to their own teaching or through peer observations.

Course Objectives

• Evaluate levels of disengagement and connect it to the costs to students and society.
• Interpret a disengaged student’s profile and a teacher’s perspective.
• Examine ripple questioning and explain how it benefits students.
• Compare the four quadrants in the TPT cognitive engagement model.
• Examine the effect of on-the-spot TPTs and hold-ups on student engagement.
• Embed on-the-spot TPTs into lessons.
• Embed a hold-up activity into a lesson.
• Analyze recent lessons for the amount of movement TPTs incorporated.
• Embed movement and guided note taking into a lesson.
• Analyze the results of embedding movement and guided note-taking activities into a lesson.
• Create TPT tool boxes that allow interactive lessons to run more smoothly.
• Analyze personal belief systems about students as it relates to the “I Trust” statements.
• Analyze the level of student participation and voice in the classroom as it relates to the building of a classroom community.
• Conduct a quadrant analysis using an online demonstration teaching video.
• Reflect on the benefits of collaboration as a means of improving teaching effectiveness.
• Conduct a quadrant analysis for a lesson the learner records, observes, or reviews.

Syllabus

(ASCD PD Online course, 2015) Reimagined self-paced asynchronous online course. Upon completion, learners will be awarded an ASCD Certificate worth up to 20 Clock Hours.