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!

Obstacle Course Writing Lesson - Class On Air

#ClassOnAir

Throughout the year I will be updating my Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir site with links to my planning, resources, reflections, videos of my teaching, and links to the learners work on their blogs. There are 10 Manaiakalani teachers from various schools and levels for you to check out. It's 21st century window into our classrooms. 
Check out the whole ClassOnAir site here.

Here's  a preview of my latest lesson.

Direct Instruction -
The learning intention for this lesson was for the children to blindfold there friends and lead them around our home made obstacle course.  We then focused heavily on the 5 W's in their recount.
The video shows a writing lesson where the learners are focusing on the discussion before writing a recount.

See the full episode here.

Zoo Reading Lesson - Class On Air

#ClassOnAir

Throughout the year I will be updating my Manaiakalani Google Class OnAir site with links to my planning, resources, reflections, videos of my teaching, and links to the learners work on their blogs. There are 10 Manaiakalani teachers from various schools and levels for you to check out. It's 21st century window into our classrooms. 
Check out the whole ClassOnAir site here.

Here's  a preview of my latest lesson.

Direct Instruction

The learning intention for this lesson was to make connections with prior knowledge and share our own opinions. The video shows a reading lesson where the learners are focusing on whether animals should be in zoos or not. We then are lucky enough to speak to a zoo keeper and ask him some questions.

See the full episode here.