Engagement is all over the education arena. I found the article "Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based teaching and learning" by Greg Kearsley & Ben Shneiderman in the list of readings. They give three basic principles of engagement in electronic and distance education, which is a main feature of CQUniversity. These are that they occur in a group, are project based, and have an outside (authentic) focus. I feel that somewhere in there, there is a distinct lack of "be interesting" or "be fun for the student" or "help the student be intrigued with the contents and therefore be engaged".
There is a whole section on collaborative learning in the list. "Collaborating over the Internet" by Pierre Dillenbourg and Daniel Schneider goes into the mechanisms for collaboration. It even talks about adult-adult interaction. The authors describe task features and breakdown of the task, the media used for collaboration, and attributes to help discussion, such as conflict. It does not mention motivators or interest. It actually seems very task oriented, and not learner oriented. Even the section on Social Grounding is more about technical issues than personal issues. Understanding also includes a desire to understand, an interest in understanding, and for that matter an interest in helping the other party understand. All the best technical communication tools in the universe are not going to help if the motivation is not there.
So now I bring it back to play. What is the difference between work and play? Why is work dull? When children get together, what they naturally do is play. Even when adults get together in a "social" context, they have fun. They enjoy what they are doing and enjoy each other's company while doing it. Somewhere along the developmental line, there became a distinction between play and work. Whether that be in Grade 1 when "play" was for lunch time and "work" was what was done in class and was hard and "not fun", or whether it was a gradual development as more school "work" took over from "playtime" and home "work" left less time for after school "activities". When going to "work" meant being a responsible adult who did no "play".
So do we put learning in that realm of "play" or "work"? Is there a way that we can not distinguish between the two? Is it outside the realm of believability that learning and working can be fun? I'm not saying that it all has to be a game, and I'm not saying that to have fun and be interested is not to take the learning seriously. If I want engagement from my students, I'm going to have a bit of fun. Fun for me and fun for the students. I think it will lead to a more engaging and motivating experience for all.
Indeed I have done a little experiment. When I was at a Complex Systems conference in Atlanta, Georgia, my colleague and I did our presentation using play. We wanted the participants to come up with a representation of Engineering and one group used play dough and the other crayons and paper. These university lecturers and professors were rather taken aback when we announced the task. It took some time, thought and questioning from them to feel comfortable with doing non-traditional activities, but in the end they did it and had a great time and really delved into the meat of what Engineering was.
One time I was, however, challenged that the difference between children and adults is that children need to play/enjoy/have fun in order to be engaged, whereas adults can be mature and put that aside and work or learn without these factors. True, I say, but what a different experience the learning is when there is genuine interest from just haveing to do it.
I'm not saying turn the classroom into a circus - but we have actually quite successfully done that with undergraduate Physics students at The University of Queensland - just that "engagement" goes beyond being in a group, doing a project with authentic focus with all the best technology.
Well, I certainly had fun reading the material and writing this! Very interesting indeed.
One time I was, however, challenged that the difference between children and adults is that children need to play/enjoy/have fun in order to be engaged, whereas adults can be mature and put that aside and work or learn without these factors. True, I say, but what a different experience the learning is when there is genuine interest from just haveing to do it.
I'm not saying turn the classroom into a circus - but we have actually quite successfully done that with undergraduate Physics students at The University of Queensland - just that "engagement" goes beyond being in a group, doing a project with authentic focus with all the best technology.
Well, I certainly had fun reading the material and writing this! Very interesting indeed.
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