The four questions that determine student engagement in the classroom.

Following up with the strategies provided by Marzano in the last post regarding student engagement, there are four essential questions that teachers need to analyze from the perspective of the students at the time of designing classroom instruction. These questions are:

1- How do I feel?

2- Am I interested?

3- Is this important?

4- Can I do this?

Each of these four questions represent a different area to address in order to achieve students’ engagement and participation during the lesson.

The first of the questions, “How do I feel?”, refers to the emotional situation of the student. The way a student feels at the moment of the lesson conditions his/her attitude towards the class activities. Marzano identifies three different factors that affect the student’s emotional status. The first of them is the student’s energy levels; the teacher should consider the energy levels on the students based on the moment of the day (after recess students come full of energy after being playing in the playground, and students are not as energetic at first hour in the morning), in order to adjust the activity based on these students’ needs. The second factor is the teacher’s positive demeanor ; whenever a teacher shows enthusiasm and passion, it is demonstrated that the students’ attention is aroused. The third factor is the student’s perception of acceptance; related to the need of creating an environment in which teacher and peers show acceptance and respect.

The second question is “Am I interested?” refers to the student’s approach to the activity in terms of finding it captivating or intriguing. Experts interpret this reaction as situational interest, consisting on a short term psychological state regarding interest. Some of the ways proposed by Marzano to generate and keep this situational interest are using game-like activities, using unusual information, initiating friendly controversy, or using effective questioning strategies.

The third question, “Is this important?” is the interpretation made by the student about the importance of the content in the lesson; if the student finds it relevant he or she will be more likely to participate and be engaged in the activity. Research shows that some of the main cues to make content relevant for the student is connecting it the his/her self system, personal goals, and cognitively complex tasks (if they are challenged to resolve certain challenges and problems, as well as making decisions or investigating).

The fourth question is “Can I do this?” and it refers to their perception of being able to complete the activity or task in a successful way. This related to their conceptions about self-efficacy. In other to target the students’ self-efficacy, Marzano suggests understanding the two different ways that students foster this topic; possible selves (students having a clear sense of what they are able to do and become), and self theories.

Student engagement and attention need to be captures by the teachers, and in order to do that, these four questions need to be addressed and pre-analyzed by the teachers from the possible students’ perspectives, so the activities result supportive, interesting, relevant, and achievable.