Engaging Today’s Students

Engaging Today’s Students Based on the presentation by Michael McQueen

Michael McQueen: • The Nex Gen Group – www.TheNexgenGroup.com • The New Rules of Engagement

Rule 1: Put Relationships First “I don’t care how much you know until I know how much you care.” “Today’s students learn teachers, not subjects.” Relationships are the key for engaging this group of students.

1. Be Authentic • When Gen Y detect the slightest hint of inauthenticity, hypocrisy or double standards, the shutters • If you are aiming to connect with young people, vulnerability, honesty and self-deprecating humour will always go a long way. • Must be vulnerable from a position of strength and not neediness or weakness. WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE IN OUR CLASSROOMS?

2. Be Interested • To build rapport with Gen Y the key is to be interested and impressed by them. • Regularly try to discover something of interest or concern for each student and then make a personal commitment to ask them about it. • Create an environment where conversations can start and naturally develop.

Leverage events of shared interest e.g. movies, news etc • Engage in two way conversations – you need to share too • Be proactive in researching what your students are interested in. • Investing time and energy will pay dividends.

Rule 2: Use Matrix Learning • Matrix learning aims to highlight the relevance and connectedness of learning to the real world. • Asking “Why?” is not being challenging – they are seeking relevance. • Borrow examples from students’ own experiences, technology and popular culture. • Bring in the “outside world” whenever possible or take them off site.

Rule 3: Focus on Outcomes Over Process • Gen Y are highly outcome driven. • Be flexible in HOW they achieve the outcomes. • Clearly articulate the outcome and then give them the flexibility, empowerment and permission to find their own way of achieving it. • Focus on only the really important “rules” – which ones are really worth the conflict, arguments etc? Which ones will ensure outcomes are completed effectively? • Is your frustration with Gen Y more a result of your own process driven rules and expectations than the specific actions, decisions and attitudes of this group?

Rule 4: Adopt a Facilitator Role • The Information Age has profoundly changed the nature and needs of young people. • Teachers as the source of knowledge are becoming increasingly unnecessary. • In the Information Age the challenge is to sift through the sea of information and create retained knowledge that is both relevant and connected.

Good Facilitators are ‘Master-Askers’ • Need to know the right questions to ask. • Need to teach the skill of learning how to learn. • Avoid closed questions • Start questions with Who? What? Where? When? How? • Don’t ask Why? • Ask one question at a time • Never ask loaded or leading questions

Ask questions with an enquiring, curious and interested tone. • Never ridicule or dismiss a response. • Answer a question with a question. • Be genuine. • Recognise that all questions have an impact. • Reduce your expectations.

Restorative Questioning • This works well with students who are in conflict • What happened? • What were you thinking at the time? • What have you thought about since? • Who has been affected by what you have done? In what way? • What do you think you need to do to make things right?

Good Facilitators Give Space For Self-Directed Learning • As teachers we need to let go of the process of learning. • Ask the right questions and then step back and let them go. • Give them the space and silence to connect the dots for themselves. • Answers that are readily given will tend to be dismissed as superficial, simple or naïve. • Questions that linger and allow for ambiguity and complexity connect powerfully with Gen Y.

Good Facilitators Clarify What Has Been Learnt • We need to make the learning explicit. • Many young people are not fully aware of what skills they have. • A good facilitator helps students retrace their steps and to point out what they have learnt and explain why this is valuable. • This allows the student to see progress and development. This is key to keeping them motivated and engaged.

Rule 5: Give Regular Positive Feedback • “Recognition is that all powerful motivator that babies will cry for, grown men will die for and Gen Y will work for.” • Encouragement and affirmation is a fail-safe tool. • Develop the skill of looking for and ‘catching’ people doing the right thing and then responding well.

“Whale Done” • Praise immediately and in a sincere way. • Be specific about what they did right or almost right. • Share your positive feelings about what they did. • Encourage them to keep up the good work. • Affirm Publicly esp in Years 9 – 12. • Affirm personally. • Affirm proportionately to the achievement. • Affirm practically.

How To Give Critical Feedback • Get your emotions under control. • Find a private place. • Focus on the action, not on the person. • Be specific. • Be timely.

Be calm. • Reaffirm your faith in the student. • Stop talking. • Define positive steps. • Get over it.

Rule 6: Use Stories To Make Your Point • When engaging Gen Y never underestimate the power of narrative. • The best way to show a principle works is to place it into a context of experience – through stories. • Stories allow the listener to attach their own meaning. • Need to design your content around stories. • “While young people resist your judgement they are very interested in your journey.”

Telling Stories: • Be authentic and honest. • Be aware of sharing that is self indulgent and self serving. • Aim to promote growth of understanding for shared experience. • Tell stories pre-emptively.

Be subtle and strategic. • Don’t read your experience into someone else’s. • Get to the point. • Tell your own or other peoples’ stories. • Share your failures and disappointments, not just your successes.

Rule 7: Go for Commitment, not Compliance • Gen Y doesn’t respond well to compliance for compliance sake. “Why should I?” Just leads to confrontation and frustration. • Commitment is categorised by opportunity, buy-in, motivators and outcomes. • Need to emphasise the positive benefits of the desire response. “What’s in it for me?” • What is in it for them – noble as well as selfish reasons.

Engaging Today’s Students