This week, we're talking about High-Leverage Practice #18: using strategies to promote active student engagement. And Lathryelle, I know you have done this in your practice, and coaching and supporting other professionals to be able to pull these students into engagement in ways that maybe their professionals don't always see. So, for you, what does this practice look like?

I think initially, you really have to go in with the mindset that they have their own personality. You have to know what they like, what they don't like, preferences, and things like that. And you have to meet them where they are. I think that's like the very first step. It's that same type of respect that you would want, you want to give that to them as well. So you meet them where they're at, you take some of their preferences, and then just engage them like any other person. And then once you start that engagement, you'll see they start to open up to you.

Even if they're nonverbal, they'll learn to trust you because they feel that you know who they are, or at least are trying to know who they are. And once you start doing those things, the engagement piece is going to just come naturally. They're going to become part of your day. And if they're not there, they're absent, or something else is going on, you're not there, you're going to see that they miss you and you miss them. So it's just like any other relationship that you have with any other person. So I think if you go in with that mindset, that's half the battle right there.

The other thing is you want to incorporate what they do every day into their goals as well. You don't want to make it seem like, ‘oh, this is your goal. We have to do this and get it done,’ and make it so rigid that they don't want to do anything outside of that. Just like all of us, we want things to be creative, we want things to be interesting, so we change it up every now and then. So that's some of the things you have to do when you work with your students.

So it doesn't matter what level they're on, you want to have fun again. A lot of them still have that kid mindset. Even if they're 25, 30 years old, they still want to have fun just like we do. And I think that's where you have to start with them. You know, all the things that they like, we like, and vice versa. So I think that engagement and having that mentality really does help with seeing that progress overall.

I love that you just see them as humans, right? They, yeah, sure, they come with a whole lot of complexities, or they may not interact with us in the way that we would anticipate our peers to interact with us, but that's okay, right? I also appreciate that kind of creativity that you're almost alluding to. And it's nice because a lot of these classrooms that I work in, there are either a lot of worksheets or like Velcro folder work or some repetitive tasks, and you're like, ‘mix it up, make it interesting, get them to engage in those ways.’ Walk me through that.

How, how have you walked with your professionals, like your other fellow practitioners, to help them see what's hidden behind what maybe those students aren't giving them, so that they know, like, ‘oh, I can try some other things, and then, oh look, a different version of this student shows up.’ Especially like, I'm thinking non-verbal students or students that are kind of aloof or appear like they're not, you know, really there in that moment. How do you work with those practitioners to really pull that student into what's going on in the classroom?

I think you always have to be aware. One of the things that I guess I've naturally learned how to do this, but I'm always kind of watching the room. So even if I'm having a conversation with a staff and it seems like I'm not really paying attention to a student, the students are paying attention to me. So sometimes, like you have a conversation about the weekend or something like that, because you just saw the teacher and you'll see the student kind of like looking at you like, oh, you know, they're interested too. And that's the perfect time for you to say, "Hey, did you do anything over the weekend?” And even if they're nonverbal, they might smile because maybe they did do something over the weekend. Or you might end up, you know, speaking to the parent and find out that they did something great over the weekend that just kind of reminded them that they did something really cool, or they just like hearing what you did.

So it's just one of those things that you have to be aware of that not only are you engaging with other people in the classroom, but you are also still engaging with the kids. Like they say, kids are always watching. They watch what you do and listen to more than what you say, so you have to be aware of that. And I think when you're working with other people, you have to kind of be mindful that this student is watching us. And when I do trainings, I tell them they're always watching us. I always say that over and over again. They're watching, they're listening, they see how we interact with each other, and they're going to mimic that.

And their energy is going to change when certain people walk into the room because they don't engage with them. But you just have to, again, treat them like they're everyone else, know that they're watching, and try to just kind of incorporate them into your everyday conversations and just enjoy. I mean, we're all here together. We're all here, going to be here for six, seven, or eight hours a day, and we have to be enjoyable.

It has to be something that you want to come back to every day. And if you want to come back and you make the classroom enjoyable, your kids are going to want to come back, and they're going to be more engaged with you and willing to do some of those tasks that are not their favorite, because you also want to do some of the things that they like to do. And even if you don't like it, they're going to do it because they like you, because you treat them in a positive way, and you engage with them in a great way that they feel like they're a part of what's going on in their world.

So you just have to keep all those little things in your mind. It sounds like a lot, but it's what we do every day. You know, when you work with a typical child or your own kids or your nieces and nephews, you just automatically do that. And it doesn't change once you go into the classroom when you're working with certain students.

But you're calling so forward this aspect of mutual respect, that it's all rooted in trust. Like, and part of what you're just saying is, like, just make it attractive! Like, be who you would want to be hanging out with, and they're going to get drawn in, regardless of that functional ability or that capacity; they can still engage in some way.

So what does this look like? A lot of the examples you're like, having conversations and then engaging them to join that conversation. But there are also times we're trying to get them to do academic work or work skills or like all these other things too. How do we pull them into that when it's maybe less naturally engaging? Like, how do we really get them to step into developing those skills, too?

Well, you kind of fall back on the skill sets that you’re taught in school when you're getting your degree, you know how to do discrete trials and things like that. Really working with them on, ‘okay, we want to do this first, then this next,’ that type of thing. So you're working all those different strategies, and sometimes you just have to say, we've got to do the hard work first, and then we can get our break, or like I say, play hard. You work hard too. So you've got to do both of those. And that's a part of life.

So you have to get them to engage with you, even with the things that they don't like. And you have to remind them and give them encouragement. Just like things that we don't like to do, we get encouragement to complete them. It may not be that hard, but we just don't want to do it. And that's the same mindset you have with a lot of the students that you work with. It may be hard for them; it might seem very simple to us, but it's hard to them. And we have to take that into consideration when we're working with them and help them get through that. These are skill sets that they're learning. Remember, they're kids, they just got here. So you've got to teach them how to work and use skill sets that'll help them progress through that and do the things that they may not want to do, or do the skill sets that they need to learn. And you just have to kind of work with them where they are and just move on from there.

Again, there's going to be some great days, there's going to be some really bad days, and there's going to be some days where both of y' all want to give up, but you come back the next day and you try to do a clean slate. Sometimes it's hard, but you want to do a clean slate and start all over again. Because every day is a new day.

I love that. Like, it's just sometimes people make this High-Leverage practice maybe a bit more complicated than what it needs to be. We can talk about explicit instruction, and we can talk about all of these like different ways to use teacher-led activities or to be able to, help them start to regulate their own engagement in different activities, or that we're bringing peers of themselves, or like around them. And there are all of these different strategies that are just, they just exist to trap these students into participating in what it is that they're learning about.

But how often in special ed are we literally just putting the hardest things in front of our students on the regular? Because we know what they struggle with and we know the skills they need to learn. And so we're constantly pushing that. Like, so rarely in special ed do we get to just do things on maintenance. Just keep the skills that they already have. We're constantly challenging our students to do more and more and more. So, like to be able to engage and just have fun with it, then we can do hard things, we can push them, and they can step in, you know, rise to that occasion. But it's not just horrible all the time, right?

And so I think the mentality I feel over the years has changed from that. I think we, just overall, with education, want our kids to do more in the same amount of time that we wanted them to do 10 years ago. And so we're also doing that with special education students, no matter what level they're on. So it's hard to get out of that ‘we need more, more, more, in less time.’ But you also have to remember their kids, they're learning, play is learning. So you can also incorporate those hard things into play and allow them to recognize that they can do some hard things.

And you may not do it the first time, but you may do the second or the third. Just keep working on it, and it'll get better. You don't necessarily have to explicitly say that, but because you want to keep it fun for them, you want to make sure that they kind of understand, especially when they actually make that goal, they achieve that goal, that ‘oh my gosh, look what you did.’ You want to be excited about it. So they're excited about it.

And the more excited they are about it, they're going to remember, and they're going to want to engage, they're going to want to try those things because they know in the past, I know that my teacher, she worked with me, she did what she needed to do. I was able to, you know, reach this goal. I was able to do something I didn't think I was able to do. Even if they don't say it, you'll see that in the energy and the engagement that they have with you. And you'll see that when you try other hard things, they're going to trust you and trust that you are going to push them to a point where they go a little bit out of their comfort zone. But it's not to the point where it's painful or it's hurtful. They want to trust that you are going to protect them in the end, and that you are the person who's going to teach them what they need, and it's going to be fun on top of that. So just kind of keep that as part of your mindset when you're working with your students.

Thank you. So before we sign off here, I want to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about maybe what this High-Leverage practice is not. I know sometimes people think that they're getting engagement, maybe just because they're getting work productivity out of their students. But just because someone is completing a task doesn't always mean that they're actually engaged in what's going on.

So from all of your work in this population, what are some of those examples where a practitioner might think, ‘Oh, I've got good student engagement,’ and maybe you would disagree.

If your classroom is not energetic. I've walked into classrooms, and you would think there were no students in there because it's quiet and it's not like they're working, but they just kind of everybody's in their own little world, in their own little zone. And it doesn't sound like, especially with younger kids, it doesn't sound like there are kids in the classroom. Things seem very sterile. I know people are very much into environments and things like that, and there's a time and a place for different environments.

So if you really want the kids to focus and do things like that. Yes. A nice, quiet environment, not too much light, not overstimulating. That's great. But sometimes kids need that burst of energy, they need that engagement. They need to be kids; they need to play. Everything doesn't have to be electronic. Everything doesn't have to be, you know, because they're lower function. Everything is kid-like all the time, you know, or baby-type stuff, you know. So when you walk into the classroom, you want to see a variety of different things. So if you walk in every day at different times, it's the same type of feel when you walk in.

And it's not like there's no real change throughout the day either. It's always like a party central versus it's always like a library, and it's study hall all the time. You have to start thinking about, okay, how do we change this up? Give them some variety, give them a chance to feel like this change is happening today. Nobody likes to do the same thing over and over again. They like to change up every now and then, even in really, really small steps.

But you have to be aware of that. You have to be aware of what your students are giving back to you. If you feel like you're working too hard with your students and you're exhausted at the end of the day, it might be something that you need to look at your classroom to see what's exhausting. Is the kid just having a bad day, you're having a bad day, other staff are just having a bad day, or is it something that's consistently going on every single day to the point where this is now your norm? And do you really want this to be your norm, to be exhausted every day? So something has to change.

And so when you talk to people, practitioners, teachers, even parents, you listen to what they're going through, you listen to what strategies work, don't work, and then you want to see what you can do and what you can pull from that to be the most positive that you can implement in your classroom. That's within your own capacity to do for students. You don't want to do something that if you're not an outgoing, over-the-top type of person, you may not want to do outgoing, over-the-top stuff every day, but you also need to step out of your comfort zone. Like we're asking the students to step out their comfort zone and actually do things that are fun, do things that are calm, do things that are realistic, do things that are outside the comfort zone, like I said before, and just give them that variety because, you know, that's the spice of life, and even in class, you want to have that. Plus, it keeps students going back to being engaged. They want to come back and be excited about school, and keeping things kind of interesting every day helps with kids coming back and wanting to be engaged because they like those types of things. So you have to look at how you feel on a daily basis, how your students are reacting, how your classroom feels, and get some feedback. Get feedback from the parents. Sometimes parents know when a kid had a good day versus a bad day. Give feedback from the admin, other staff who are working in your room, and give feedback from yourself, as well as the students, and see how they react. If something works in the classroom, just keep it going. If it doesn't work, don't be afraid to switch.

I hear everything you're saying, and the word that keeps coming to mind is connection, right? Like you're connecting with your students so that they then connect with you. They would connect with their peers. You're connecting with your colleagues, connecting with their families, so that their family can connect better with them. Like, I'm just hearing that concept of connection is really being that foundation from which all engagement can grow, which makes a ton of sense to me. I just don't think that as an educator who's worked primarily in high-incidence populations, a lot of times we talk about engagement as instructional strategies. And you're right, it is so firmly rooted in just genuine connection. So thank you for calling that forward as part of this conversation. I really appreciate it. Thank you for spending your time with me today.

Oh, you're very welcome.