Where's my head at, what is engagement?

Lately I've been doing some thinking and questioning my own thinking.  I was asked how I will measure my learners engagement and I was stuck, I think I threw the word engagement around to easily. 

Are these kids engaged? 

How do I engage these kids?

Why is engagement so important?

How do I measure engagement?

What does engagement really mean?

I then did some research and have realised that there are many different types of engagement, two that I will be focusing on will be these two:

• Behavioural Engagement
• Cognitive Engagement

For my learners to be behaviourally engaged I have the understanding that they need to be focused and completing their work.  I am going to video my students and see if they are behaviourally engaged in their learning.  Cognitive engagement is a bit more tricky i've found.  I'm still researching and learning to understand what 'Cognitive Engagement' really is and how I will be able to measure this in my classroom.

I started my inquiry thinking that I was going to be making a whole lot of movies and have turned away from that idea since.  The reason I turned away was because I realised that my inquiry needed to based upon a problem that I have identified with my learners and that was engagement.  

I then have gone back and thought more critically about my inquiry and have come to think that making movies and looking at creating scripts could cognitively engage my learners.  I will still be looking at multiple ways of engaging my learners to write.  Any ideas please let me know!

Relection - 8/7

This week we had a very busy week.  I was able to lead our team meeting about Kahoot, I showed the teachers in our team how I use Kahoot for Maths knowledge.  We discussed how it can be such an amazing asset to your teaching because of the engagement and the competition it brings to the students.  My students absolutely love it and we do it twice a week, the children get so excited for 'Kahoot Day'.   Other teachers in our team are doing this in their classroom as well now, they have also had success with the engagement and fun that it brings to the children.

We also had the opportunity of doing a Google Hangout with my Dad.  One of my reading groups were reading a book about changing a tyre, and my Dad is a mechanic.  My Dad was able to do a Google Hangout and show the children how to change a tyre, he took them through a step by step way of what tools you need to use, then how to do it.  The kids were amazed that the tyre could come off that fast.  The children then had questions that they were able to ask him and it went really well.  It was an awesome experience for the children and my Dad!