Contact+Zone-+Comprehension

The Rules of Engagement: Capturing and Keeping Your Students’ Attention
 * VICTORY **


 * V **ariety
 * I **nteraction
 * C **hoice
 * T **ime Awareness
 * O **rganize for Flexibility
 * R **ewind (Backward Design)
 * Y **esterday (Look to the Past to Assess and Access Prior Knowledge)
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">V __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">ariety __

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Remember, all students do not learn in the same ways; try to incorporate activities that address all learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Infuse music, art, popular culture, and other disciplines into your lesson plans. Try pairing unrelated or drastically different genres.


 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">I __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">nteraction __

//<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Always //<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';"> involve the students in the teaching equation. The one-way lecture is becoming a relic of the past. Students learn by doing. Make students responsible for their own learning.


 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">C __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">hoice __

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Students learn better when they have a choice in their focus areas; encourage discussions that engage the individual interests of the students. For example, instead of assigning one book for a class project, provide multiple, diverse options that will appeal to different tastes.


 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">T __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">ime Awareness __

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Keep students’ attention spans in mind. Many college students begin to lose focus after 10 minutes. Experiment with different time segments to discover the optimum range for the age and grade level of your students.


 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">O __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">rganize with flexibility in mind. __

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Plan for the unexpected; if an activity isn’t working, have a back-up activity ready in its place; conversely, if a particular part of a lesson is going well, extend the duration and adjust the other portions accordingly.

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">When planning a lesson, start at the end and work your way to the beginning (Backward Design). “The Backward Design model centers on the idea that the design process should begin with identifying the desired results and then "work backwards" to develop instruction rather than the traditional approach which is to define what topics need to be covered. Their framework identifies three main stages:
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">R __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">ewind (Backward Design __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Stage 1: Identify desired outcomes and results.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Stage 2: Determine what constitutes acceptable evidence of competency in the outcomes and results (assessment).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Stage 3: Plan instructional strategies and learning experiences that bring students to these competency levels” (Wiggins and McTighe).
 * __<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Y __**__<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">esterday (Assess and Access Prior Knowledge) __

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">“Since new knowledge and skill is dependent on pre-existing knowledge and skill, knowing what students know and can do when they come into the classroom or before they begin a new topic of study, can help us craft instructional activities that build off of student strengths and acknowledge and address their weaknesses” (Carnegie Mellon University).

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">______________________________________________________________________________

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The ultimate goal of engagement is comprehension or understanding.
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">The Six Facets of Understanding: (From the Educational Research Service Web site) <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">1. **Explain** provide thorough and justifiable accounts of phenomena, facts, and data <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">2. **Interpret** — tell meaningful stories, offer apt translations, provide a revealing historical or personal dimension to ideas and events; make subjects personal or accessible through images, anecdotes, analogies, and models <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">3. **Apply** — effectively use and adapt what they know in diverse contexts <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">4. **Have perspective** — see and hear points of view through critical eyes and ears; see the big picture <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">5. **Empathize** — find value in what others might find odd, alien, or implausible; perceive sensitively on the basis of prior indirect experience <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">6. **Have self-knowledge** — perceive the personal style, prejudices, projections, and habits of mind that both shape and impede our own understanding; they are aware of what they do not understand and why understanding is so hard <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Novel Ways to Encourage Engagement: (from Maricopa Community College)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Games **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">related to the subject can easily be incorporated into the classroom to foster active learning and participation. Games can include matching, mysteries, group competitions, solving puzzles, Pictionary, etc

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">discussion. Introduce a topic or problem and then ask for student input, which you record on the board.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Brainstorming **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">is another simple technique that can involve the whole class in a


 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Provide red, yellow and green cards **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">to your students to use in communicating with you during a lecture. If they are following you, they put up a green card. If they are starting to get lost, yellow. If the students are disagreeing or completely lost, the red goes up.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Spice up lectures **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">with **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">challenging questions **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">in which you invite the students to discuss- sometimes argue about - the topic in hand with their classmates.

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">"turn to your partner". At various times, stop lecturing and give the students a mini <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">assignment, reinforcing the lecture, that they complete in a pair, or ask them to compare <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">notes so they can both be sure they have all the information.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Make lectures more “learning-friendly”. **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Use a cooperative learning strategy called

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">happened to a community, family, school, or individual to prompt students to integrate <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">their classroom knowledge with their knowledge of real-world situations, actions, and <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">consequences. Incorporate current news events related to the concepts/skills covered in class
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Case studies **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">use real-life stories and primary source materials that describe what


 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Use Technology **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">to encourage active learning. Have students do a Web activity, prepare a Power Point presentation, use Blackboard for group work or discussions outside the classroom, etc.

<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">develop the skill of working with others. Cooperative group work requires all group <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">members to work together to complete a given task. Break the class into groups of 2-5 <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">students. Give each group articles to read, questions to answer and discuss, information to share, subjects to teach to other groups, etc. <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Sources: [] <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">[] <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">[] <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">[]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">Group work **<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua','serif';">allows every participant the chance to speak, share personal views, and