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Spark classroom interest by showing relevance

In a pre-FDOC workshop, Center for Faculty Excellence staff shared this advice and other tips for engaging students in learning.

A collage of words.

If you want students to be engaged in your subject, let them know why it matters to them. Be clear about your expectations. Make sure the way you teach models the way you want them to learn.

These were just some of the tips from faculty leaders and participants in the Jan. 4 “Setting the Stage for an Engaged Semester” online workshop by the Center for Faculty Excellence. The class was co-taught by Marissa Stewart, senior faculty development consultant in teaching and learning, and Emily Boehm, faculty development consultant.

Emily Boehm

Emily Boehm

“Prime your students to be engaged participants in your class by starting off your courses with a real emphasis on active learning and engagement,” Boehm said.

True to Stewart and Boehm’s advice, the one-hour refresher used a variety of techniques over Zoom that modeled ways to engage students in the classroom. These included a poll to create a word cloud for their hopes for the new semester and a “reflect and share” session on what “engagement” means. They also created a “chat waterfall” by typing potential barriers to engagement into the Zoom chat but waiting till a signal was given to post them all at the same time.

 

What engagement looks like

Marissa Stewart

Marissa Stewart

The heart of the lesson came when CFE instructors shared a document listing the six objectives for improving engagement and assigned breakout groups to discuss two objectives each. In breakout sessions, the small groups talked about their own experiences and added their own ideas to the document.

“That’s what we really want to delve into — things that you can consider on that first day of class to really help students understand what engagement is going to look like in your course,” Stewart said.

Here’s a sampling of the instructors’ advice for setting the stage for an engaged semester:

Introduce yourself to students.Your introduction to your students is an opportunity to convey important information, share your passion and enthusiasm for the discipline, and build a connection that generates trust.

Faculty members who share why their subject is important to them are likely to spark students’ interest as well. Some introduce themselves using social media, while others post an intro on Sakai or Canvas. Dana Riger, clinical assistant professor in the School of Education, uses a cartoon to help students remember how to pronounce her name.

Collect info on your students’ knowledge and future goals.Gather informal data or administer a diagnostic to gauge students’ prior knowledge, find out why students are taking your course, what they expect to get out of it and what challenges they anticipate.

Start by asking the students how they learn best, suggested Wendy Clark, clinical assistant professor in the Adams School of Dentistry. “This cohort of students — having to go through remote learning and then hybrid and then in-person — has had to learn so many different learning styles, I would want them to have an opportunity to say what’s the best way for them.”

Spark students’ interest in course content.The first day of class is an important chance to generate interest in course material and activate students’ relevant prior knowledge.

“If your content and your activities feel inauthentic to students — if they lack real-world relevance or emotional resonance — then your students are going to be less motivated. Think at all times how you can make the activities feel not isolated to just this hour in your classroom,” Boehm said. One suggestion was to incorporate case studies to bring in real-world examples of class topics.

Set the tone for the course.The way you engage students on the first day of class sends a clear message about the interaction you expect from them. Once you identify the activities students will engage in throughout the semester, begin using them on the first day of class.

From the first day, instructors should demonstrate the learning management system (Canvas/Sakai) for the class on the presentation screen to reinforce usage by students. “Even though you tell them it’s on Sakai or Canvas, some say they can’t find the assignment, so I feel like demonstrating everything would help,” Clark said.

Clarify learning objectives and expectations.Take this opportunity to establish that you want students participating regularly in class, to model the desired course environment and prime students for actions that will lead to success.

Sharing recommendations from former students about how they navigated the class was one example of this objective. Another was “selling the syllabus,” an exercise in which students create a 30-to-60-second commercial for assignments, objectives and other items on the syllabus. “They become the expert on that topic, and then they tell the rest of the class, ‘Wait, there’s more! You can also dig into these ideas,” said Kristin Papoi, clinical assistant professor in the School of Education.

Help students learn about each other. Fostering the student-to-student connection provides vicarious experiences and generates trust and a sense of belonging.

Icebreakers are a great way for students to make connections with one another, and so are student-to-student interviews. In the School of Nursing, the stated purpose for video interviews is to improve therapeutic communication, but the “hidden agenda” is for the students to get know each other, said associate professor Maureen Baker. “You may think since they’re sitting in class together, they know each other, but they don’t. They love the opportunity to find out why people chose nursing.”