Schlechty’s identifies five levels and types of student engagement:

1. Schlechty’s identifies five levels and types of student engagement: • Authentic engagement • Ritual engagement • Passive compliance • Retreatism • Rebellion (p. 65) • Schlechty, P. (2001). Shaking up the schoolhouse: How to support and sustain educational innovation. NY: Jossey-Bass.

2. Discussion:Work of Value and Personal Meaning “If educators want students to work hard and be persistent, they must find ways of designing work that students believe to be worth doing” (Schlechty, 2001, p. 10), because it is perceived to be of value and personal meaning (p. 64). “Engagement does not result from students’ desire to learn. Engagement results from students‘ desire to do things they cannot do unless they learn” (p. 9). “To assess engagement it is necessary to determine both the level of effort a student is expending and the meaning and significance the student attaches to the tasks he or she is assigned” (p. 68).

3. “The reason America’s schoolchildren are not learning what we want them to learn is that in too many instances they are being asked to do things they do not see as worth doing in order to learn things adults want them to learn. • If educators want students to work hard and be persistent, they must find ways of designing work that students believe to be worth doing.” • “The engaging teacher may or may not require commitment from students. Sometimes engaging teachers mistake appreciation, respect and compliance with intellectual engagement…” (p. 68). • “Students who persist out of fear of failure are less likely than are morally committed students (whose who see meaning and value in the work assigned) to achieve high standards. Morally committed students are engaged students” (p. 69)

4. What does it look like for your students? • Authentic engagement. The student associates the task with a result or product that has meaning and value for the student, such as reading a book on a topic of personal interest or to get information needed to solve a problem the student is actively trying to solve. • Ritual engagement. The task has little inherent or direct value to the student, but the student associates it with outcomes or results that do have value, as when a student reads a book in order to pass a test. • Passive compliance. The task is done to avoid negative consequences, although the student sees little meaning or value in the tasks themselves. • Retreatism. The student is disengaged from the tasks and does not attempt to comply with the demands of the task, but does not try to disrupt the work or substitute other activities for it. • Rebellion. The student refuses to do the task, tries to disrupt the work, or attempts to substitute other tasks to which he or she is committed in lieu of those assigned by the teacher. http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/index.php/teacherlore/engagement/

6. http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/index.php • What intrigues me about heritage teachers who consistently get high quality intellectual products from students is the skill with which they put before students work that engages them. I’ve noted several factors about that place-based research that students have said are important: • 1. It is real work. The projects are organized with a final public exhibition as a mission. The need to have a complex finished product by a specified deadline gives the work shape and energizes the participants. • 2. The work is important. Students believe they are preserving history that will otherwise be lost, or giving voice to people who would otherwise be silent. They believe this because their teachers and others aren’t shy about telling them what they are doing is important. • 3. The work is social. Students get to be part of a team that has a mission—getting ready for a public performance. This gives them a reason for being together and things worth talking about. Since they are dependent on each other for how well things work out, what they do matters. Also, community mentors, parents and grandparents, and outside experts get involved with the work. People like being involved in things that lots of other people are involved in

7. Characteristics of Authentic Engagement with Learning • Students see their work as personally meaningful. • Students’ feel challenged by the rigor of the work, persisting in difficult tasks because they consider the tasks worthwhile. • Students master content through project-based, inquiry-driven learning with access to multiple types of media, including experts. • Students work and learn collaboratively and socially, both online and off. • Students evaluate for and select the best tools for their work. • Students choose to revise work until it reflects their internal vision of what they learned and how they want to represent it. http://classroots.org/authentic-engagement/

8. Characteristics of Authentic Work • Students’ work is published for an authentic audience. • Students receive feedback on their work from experts before and after publication. • Students revise work until it shows mastery of content and reflects the habits of mind of experts in its disicplines. • Students’ work benefits their community. • Paula White (@paulawhite on Twitter, blogging at http://tzstchr.edublogs.org/) posts on engagement here, including John Antonetti’s engagement cube which highlights best practices in the design of learning for engagement.  Another viewpoint on engagement comes from the Schlechty Center. Robert J. Marzano presents a meta-study take on engagement in chapter 5 of The Art and Science of Teaching. Bob Peterson writes about motivating students to do quality work here at Rethinking Schools Online. Quality work as defined by William Glasser, of Choice Theory fame, comes from students’ intrinsic engagement with learning in a joyful place, and thus also shares some characteristics with authentic engagement.  Expeditionary Learning at schools like King Middle School, as well as authentic intellectual work and service-learning practices like those at Quest High School, also provide models for creating authentic engagement. http://classroots.org/authentic-engagement/