Increasing student engagement following Marzano’s effective teaching strategies.

When attempting to generate student engagement in the classroom, there are not many strategies better than the ones that Dr. Robert J. Marzano describes and details on his book The Highly Engaged Classroom published on 2010.

Before diving into the strategies themselves, it is important to address that there is a starting point in  the engagement process of the student; and that point only exists when motivation appears in the students’ minds. Motivation can be generated in several different ways depending on the context, teaching philosophy of the teacher, or preferences of the students on a given scenario. Marzano on his book approaches the possibility of triggering motivation from the perspective of the students’ perception of acceptance. Marzano believes that when students feel welcome, supported, and accepted on a classroom environment, they are more likely to become active participants in the classroom activities. Building a positive student-teacher relationship in which support is provided, is considered a consistent and strong predictor of motivation among students.

Once motivation has been generated, is the responsibility of the teacher to design and structure activities that not only maintain that motivation but also increases it leading to full student engagement in the task. Marzano suggests different options that have the common denominator of being based on the psychological principle of clozentropy. This theory arguments that when referring to the human mind, it naturally attends to situations in which there are missing details. Human beings tend to attempt resolve that cognitive dissonance resulting from an incomplete situation.

Based on the theory of clozentropy, Marzano suggests using effective questioning strategies as a tool to generate and maintain situational interest. This Marzano’s reasoning is based on the fact that, when a student is answering a question, his/her working memory is completely involved in the task that is presented to him/her at that moment. This occurs because the student’s mind detects that in a question there is certain information missing, and this requires attention and focus in order to get the blanks filled. This mechanism is a very significant hint that teachers can consider at the time of deciding which content delivery option is chosen for the lesson activities.

By contemplating this brain mechanism existing among students, it can be understood why learning by playing is considered a very effective strategy. Most games result from the approach or raise of series of questions that require a certain action/answer to be solved and win the game. This processing system in the students opens an infinite number of possibilities to the teachers at the time of implementing curriculum content within a game, actively engaging the students, and therefore achieving effective learning among the students.