Touchstone 5

I engage student interest with every lesson.

It is important to engage students, because if they are interested they are more motivated. If they are motivated, they will learn. Goodwin and Hubbell state that, "Student motivation translates into effort, which in turn has a greater effect on performance than ability does" (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). "Marzano's (2000) analysis of student, teacher, and school variables correlated with student success found that student interest and motivation account for 14 percent of the perceived variance in student achievement—slightly more than teachers' effects on performance, which accounts for 13 percent of the variance" (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013).

John Medina (2008) lists as one of 12 rules about how the brain works: “We don't pay attention to boring things.” As Medina explains, our brains can really only spotlight one thing at a time, and because of that, we are hard-wired to attend to the most important, relevant, and novel stimuli we find in our environment (Goodwin & Hubbell, 2013). Understanding how the brain functions can help us in designing lessons that appeal to our students.

To engage students, it helps to change learning techniques frequently. Instead of a 1 hour lecture, a teacher might:

start with a review of the previous lesson
ask an essential question to begin the new topic
have students complete a KWL graphic organizer
deliver content by direct teaching or by using student led teaching, such as the jigsaw learning method
give guided practice time
end class with a "ticket out the door"

By changing learning styles and structures every 10-15 minutes, students are more likely to be engaged and learning. Also, teachers could arrange the room in a way that supports "think-pair-share," make sure lessons are relevant to students' lives, sing, do something unexpected, have students get up and move, or give students 2-3 choices to guide learning. "Research has shown that providing choices to students of all age levels often increases their intrinsic motivation. Choice in the classroom has also been linked to increases in student effort, task performance, and subsequent learning" (Marzano, 2018).

References

Goodwin, B. & Hubbell, E. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: A checklist for staying focused every day.

Association for supervision & curriculum development. Alexandria, VA, Association for supervision & curriculum

development. [Bookshelf Online].

Marzano, R. (2018). Tips from Dr. Marzano, The highly engaged classroom. Retrieved from

https://www.marzanoresearch.com/resources/tips/hec_tips_archive#tip18