For this high-leverage practice, this HLP, we are discussing using strategies to promote active student engagement. So student engagement being much more than just eyes where they need to be or mouths quiet, but truly actively engaging in whatever learning is going on. So this week with me, I have Candace, who is the queen of trapping all of our reluctant learners at the secondary level into truly engaging meaningfully with whatever activity they've been given, even some of the most challenging activities to get our guys to interact with.

So, Candace, when we're talking about those strategies, we're specifically leaning into active student engagement. What does this mean for you?

This definitely means something different for every kid. So step one is listening, listening to what it is that they need. They're usually telling us, maybe not in the way that we normally hear it, but they are, and really paying attention to that. And this has looked different with every kid that I've worked with. And I will say that none of the engagement that I've seen out of the kids that I work with looks like what you would consider typical engagement. It's always atypical, it's always different than the norm.

Their methods of engaging are always something a little bit different, and it takes a little creativity. You've got to be willing to allow them to learn in their way, which can be a challenge. And I absolutely respect the challenge that is for a teacher in a classroom full of 15-20 kids to be able to help each student with their own method of engagement, that's very difficult. That's where people like us come in and we sort of take those ones that aren't engaging and figure out what it is that works for them.

So it can be such a variety of things, whether that's technology, whether that's lack of technology. For a lot of students, it's taking the computer away, you'll get more active engagement out of them. It could be motivators, tokens, prizes, seating arrangements. I mean, literally everything and anything you could think of can really be the thing that helps them to engage. You just have to pay attention to what it is that they need.

Yeah, and thank you for calling out that active engagement looks a lot of different ways because most people will think or will basically see active engagement and basically assume that that simply means that they're doing what I've told them to do. So if they're supposed to be completing this worksheet or engaging in this group activity, whatever that explicit exact thing is, is active engagement. And if it's not that, that it's not actively engaging.

But you're saying that it can actually be bigger than that. There's a lot of different ways that students can be showing up and engaging in their learning in meaningful ways that are truly engaged, and then we're moving them in the direction of maybe that desired work product or something like that. Can you speak a little bit to that? What would be some other examples of active student engagement that's more than just doing the worksheet or answering the question engaging in the group work?

You know, the very first thing that comes to my mind is one of my favorite, all-time favorite, students ever. We had a heck of a time getting this student to engage in classroom time, particularly like being read to or lectures or that kind of a format, just a heck of a time. But he had some sensory issues that caused him to feel much better when he was standing on his head. And oftentimes he was disrupting the classroom to do a headstand, and he was being reprimanded for doing a headstand in the middle of the classroom.

Until we realized that while doing that headstand, he was actively engaged in what was going on in the classroom. And if we didn't allow that, he felt out of control and was unable to focus. And so we created a spot and put an x, like a box, on the floor with tape, and created a safe space for him to do his headstand. And he would. And he would listen to every word that was being said. And when we were done speaking, he could regurgitate back to you everything that was talked about.

And he did so while standing on his head. And for me, that is a great example of just out of a box, or for him in the box, active student engagement, where he was not engaged until we allowed that. And that is not what a normal classroom looks like. It's not even feasible in every situation. But for us, we paid attention, and we recognized what he needed and found a way to make that happen, and he was still able to learn.

Yeah, I love that. And that's so good, because that's showing the learning process. A lot of times, engagement is almost focused on the product, and that, you're talking solely about the process: the process of learning and engaging. There's all kinds of different ways that that can look so that I can then perform on this product. I mean, the student you're talking to, I remember administering the state standardized assessments to him while he's standing on his head with very creative use of accommodations and test read and scribe and all that stuff so that he could be on his head. We could ask the question, he'd give us the answer, we'd mark it down and keep going.

But it's like, how can you position a student to actively engage in what they need so they can learn? And then, I mean, another high-leverage practice we'll talk about is how do they demonstrate what they learn? And that's what we were using on some of those state standardized tests, too.

And I've seen it look different in different kids. Some will work for food, and we're not talking full steak dinners, like, a cashew. Answer a question, get a cashew. I have one that will work for Pokemon cards. You know, finish a worksheet and pick a Pokemon card. So a lot of times, those kinds of tokens, little things like that, can be real motivators. I have another student that I work with regularly that just honestly is kind of like me in the area of self-care, where I like to look forward to seeing something.

So, with the promise of a break, and we're going to play a hand of uno, he'll do ten worksheets, and then break time, we play a hand of uno, and then we get back to work, and he'll say, can we play another hand of uno after I finish this? And then I set a timer and, yep, we can play another hand of uno after you finish this. So it oftentimes is very simple things. It's just finding what works for that student, and then they will engage, and they're able to get done far more than anybody even imagines that they could.

It's just finding their style, and their style is a little bit different. If some students that are horribly distracted by the computer, they can't keep one single tab open. They have to open 15 tabs, and they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. But when you take it away, and you put it on a piece of paper, well, then they get it done. You know, other students just don't write. They don't want to write. They're better on a computer. So you flip it.

So I think it's just accommodating the specific needs of the student and finding that which engages them and keeping things very relevant to what's going on in their life. I've even changed stories to make the story fit their life, as long as the end result of the story was the same, they could still answer the question, you know? I'm gonna adjust it so that it works for them. They don't understand what's being said, so, you know, word problem in math “Mary had four oranges”.

How about, ”Jimmy had four Pokemon cards,” and just change the wording, make it something that relates to them. Makes them smile, too.

That's what I was just thinking is you have gotten some very staunchly resistant learners to engage in learning and to learn hard things and to learn more and perform more that even they themselves thought was possible. But as you're sharing these stories, you're talking about listening, you're talking about engaging their interests, you're talking about doing things that really puts on full display, that you are noticing them as people and what kind of makes them tick. And then you're advocating either directly by how you're interacting with them or then how you're coaching and guiding other folks on the team to be able to engage with and interact with them.

There's an aspect of kind of just assumed rapport that you have then just automatically created simply by listening and making little adjustments where it just helps them learn, helps you get whatever the teacher needs to get done done. But that in and of itself is really building rapport, which a lot of times we'll find with our students, if they don't like you, they aren't working for you. And so it's not that they don't want to do the work, it's they're not doing anything for you, and then it becomes a more personal thing. And so then how do we adjust that? Well, everything you just shared had nothing to do with do they like me? Do they not?

It's I'm looking at them and by me trying to figure them out, I'm actually demonstrating things that are just going to create rapport by proxy.

Yep.

Well, I'm wondering, are there any examples that are coming to mind for you? I know we've already shared a few along the way here, but when we're looking at active student engagement, I'm thinking maybe some of those super resistant learners that were full stop, no go, “there's no way you can't make me” type learners that you were able to find some something that either they didn't recognize about themselves or were able to kind of adjust a little something in the maybe their intervention plan or something that was going on around them that really unlocked opportunities for them to show what they know in ways that they maybe weren't yet.

Well, I think oftentimes, just completing a task that no one thought they would complete, including them, that shows that they know something. Pulling back on as they start to engage, pulling back on the amount of assistance that I give them once they're engaged, now I want to back off a little bit and allow them to show what they know. And I think it all just goes back to kind of just paying attention to the kid.

I have one that I work with pretty regularly. He is a really good reader, but he feels overwhelmed by too many words on the page. So we'll start off with me reading more than him on the page. He'll read. I'll read, he'll read. I'll read, he'll read. But I'm taking more of the words. As we go on, I back off, he reads more. And by the time we get to the last part, he's reading all of it because I pulled myself away. So, just fading that out as you start to recognize what it is that they need to learn.

I think one of my favorite success stories was a very, very difficult student who just was difficult in every way but vocabulary. He failed every vocabulary test he ever took, and he started taking walks outside, and that was part of his break time. And in doing so, we would walk, and I would go over the vocabulary words with him while we walked, and we would talk about other things. And then we come back to vocabulary words, and I got to know him very well.

And then he would take his vocabulary test, and he would pass because he actually knew the words. But we walked and talked and did it, and that was what he needed. He couldn't sit still and just memorize vocabulary words and definitions. But in walking and talking, and using them in conversation, and going over definitions as we would talk, I would find a way to work that word into casual conversation. And now it segues in and he starts to put it all together.

And he started passing his vocabulary test, which was amazing. It worked. I didn't know if I was just talking into the air until he took a test, and I got to see that he could do it.

Well, that's… I mean, you had to be monitoring that progress, right? That's one of the pieces of this high-leverage practice is, you know? It's not just are they engaging, it's is that engagement resulting in learning? And that has an aspect of monitoring, right? So, like, I'm supporting you a lot, and then I'm pulling back on my support. Well, is that like, “Well, you've been doing good enough. I'm out of here.”

It's like, no, doing that gradual release and watching and is this actually having the outcome that we wanted to? Are they still maintaining the way they have been doing or do we need to adjust some of the things? Like you're saying, hey, we started off with bombing these vocab quizzes, and then we swapped it out. They were able to engage in their learning much more actively, which then actually resulted in those higher scores.

So I think there is the aspect of monitoring that performance and even just knowing you, just that level of honest, constructive feedback where if something shows up, they're engaging in something and it's going wrong, you'll give them that feedback, you'll get them back on track. But likewise, if they're engaging and you're like, holy smokes, you just got that. That's amazing. Right? Like, you're also really great at noticing both sides and providing that feedback in a way that's just like, hey, we're just human, and we're just learning and figuring stuff out and keeping it going, which I think then builds right back into that rapport, right? It's all these moving pieces that have to come together for a student to be actively engaged. It's more than just sit down and listen and do your work.

And oftentimes the goals that our students meet they seem like something everybody should be doing. So when they actually do meet that goal, nobody notices. Well, I won't say nobody, but it can be easily missed because we think, well, that's something they should have been doing all along. They're in 7th grade now. They should be doing that. Well, they weren't. And so providing that positive feedback to encourage them to keep going is important.

And you wouldn't know to do that if you're not paying attention to the little things, celebrating the little victories and knowing that that is a victory because you're monitoring the progress and paying attention to how they're growing and celebrating them as they go through that process. They're more likely to want to continue to grow when it's being noticed. And our kiddos, they get a lot of negative.

And so finding ways to give them some of that positive is just unbelievably important to continued student engagement and seeing the progress that we're trying to see.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. Like I said at the beginning, you have gotten some of the most reluctant and resistant learners to actively engage and kind of surprise themselves with their own outcomes. So thank you so much for taking the time to share with me how you make that happen.