The 7 Engagement Factors for students living in poverty according to Eric Jensen are:
1. Health and nutrition
2. Vocabulary
3. Effort and energy
4. Mind-set
5. Cognitive capacity
6. Relationships
7. Stress level
What thinks you, BLT? Would you agree these are the most important factors for low SES kids and engagement which leads to achievement? Feel free add your own or pick which factor(s) you feel most strongly about.
Lisa, I would agree that these are the primary engagement factors; if we look at it from a "barriers" viewpoint, many of these factors become barriers to success/ achievement for our kids living in poverty if not addressed systemically.
ReplyDeleteThese are all huge factors that affect student learning. I see difficulty with both effort/energy as well as mind-set. Many students that live in poverty are difficult to motivate because at home education isn't valued as highly as middle class families. Many times this is due to multi-generational poverty. Also I have had repeated students over the years that live in poverty and have a very negative mind-set. They are very quick to give up or start beating themselves up over mistakes or poor grades. I try to be as motivating and positive as possible, especially when it comes to high stakes tests and that helps a little, but I think if we embrace this positive mentality and really make an effort to encourage kids to do well, it could have a huge impact. For example, we could make an effort to share more academic successes at assemblies and from teacher to teacher take an interest in other class's test scores. Making a big deal out of it and talking about it and celebrating it could start to build some intrinsic motivation in our kids.
ReplyDeleteI love Eric Jensen's books! As I read this book, I was reminded of all of the obstacles our low SES students have to overcome at home and at school. It is easy to forget these factors during the daily grind of focusing on content. I agree that each of these factors have an impact on our students' success. The factors that I am most challenged with when working with my Reading Recovery students are effort and energy and mindset. Reading those chapters gave me great strategies to use. Although the number of strategies to use was overwhelming, I was able to choose a few that I can implement easily throughout my lessons.
ReplyDeleteTeaching using these "Rules for Engagement" is really about changing your teaching and not the content. I would love to focus on one domain and one strategy in our data teams and see the results we could get. Engagement is such a huge barrier in our students' academic and social success. I think the collaboration piece will be essential in implementing engagement strategies consistently.
Here are some parts of the book that really stuck with me...
* Five years of quality teaching can completely offset the effects of poverty!
*Impulsivity is an exaggerated response to stress that serves as a survival mechanism
* Quality of nutrition effects the brain: deficiency in minerals leads to a weaker memory ( a huge problem in our low SES students) and deficiency in Omega 3 leads to depression. Why are our breakfast still not healthy when our students need high protein and complex carbohydrates to get their day started right academically and behaviorally???
I agree with these 7 Engagement Factors. While reading this book, I was reminded of all of the barriers our students face each day. I always find that I need to be reminded of these barriers. In a recent IEP meeting, I suggested to a parent that she take her child to the library. She replied that she did not know where the library was, and that she rarely left State Street outside of going to work. It reminded me that I once learned that people who live in poverty have a much smaller area of living and area of experience than people who do not live in poverty. Their circle is much closer to home.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this book, I felt that developing a relationship with kids and letting them know you care about them is really the root of all of these factors. Kids will not work for us, unless they know we care about them. It is important to teach kids as we would our own children. When we care about them and their future and let them know we care, they are more motivated. Throughout the book Jensen mentions effect size, like we are learning about through Hattie. He mentioned that teachers' expectations of students has an effect size of 1.03 which is pretty significant. If we expect them to give their best effort and remind them of that all of the time, then they will give us their best effort. We also need to remind them where they are and where they need to be academically. Helping them to set goals (self reported grades) has an effect size of 1.44. Students need to be more connected to their learning and why they are doing what they are doing.
Scott you made a really good point about intrinsic motivation. If kids learn to internalize success and feel good about their accomplishments, they will be more likely to become self motivated.
I thought this was a great book to read. I agree with the 7 engagement factors and this book gave me a new perspective on the obstacles our low SES students face. I believe that relationships and effort and energy are the biggest engagement factors for students living in poverty. I completely agree with what Carrie said about the importance of developing relationships with our students. The trust between teacher and student need to be built in order for our students to apply themselves. Students need to feel safe and feel like an essential piece of the classroom family. I think this goes right along with effort and energy. Students need to see the importance and personal outcomes of working hard in order to want to put forth their best effort and have the intrinsic motivation that Scott and Carrie mentioned above. As we all know as their teachers, sometimes we are our students only stable and consistent adult in their lives. We need to show our students their strengths and build their confidences up so they feel proud of themselves. I personally work very hard at building relationships with students and try to be as positive as I can. However, after reading this book, I discovered some great strategies to take back and use in my classroom!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this book (more so than Teaching with Poverty in Mind). I found the hands-on ideas/strategies useful. I agree with Scott when he said some of our children tend give us easily when things become difficult. I do think it is important to try to chunk their learning and celebrate every small gain.
ReplyDeleteReading this book makes me think about our year-round calendar. What really is best for our students? Will a longer summer be hard on some children if they are home without supervision, nutritious food, and meaningful activities? Can our lunchroom and library be made available to any NA in need? Could the Park Board hold Tot Lot and other programs at NA? Could the Park Board have open gym available such as at the Fitness Center?
I enjoyed reading Engaging Students with Poverty in Mind and agree with the seven engagement factors. This book provided wonderful strategies to use within our own classrooms. Chapter 7 really stood out to me because maintaining student energy and focus is often difficult. Sometimes I feel guilty for taking those five minute brain breaks because of feeling stressed to teach everything that is planned for the day. However, chapter 7 explained how crucial movement is for all students. These short activities improve attention, teach self-regulation, help with concentration, teach how to focus on an object, and help with working memory. These are all skills that must be practiced on a daily basis. By changing our enthusiasm and our engagement tactics, we will have more energized students who in return put forth a greater effort.
ReplyDeleteLike Trisha mentioned, I think these strategies would be powerful if we all decided what strategies to implement together to get results. I plan on focusing on engaging for energy and focus by implementing one new strategy a week. Since we are staring our Science kits, we are going to do the activity where students come up with team names and cheers in cooperative groups. One statement that caught my attention on page 44 was “you should invest in at least half your class time in some sort of social interaction.” If students are not getting a chance to work with their peers than they will probably get their peers attention in an unhealthy way. As Carrie and Bonnie mentioned, relationships are so important and positive peer relationships play a crucial role too.
I also really enjoyed reading this book. It was very thought provoking. When I first started reading the book I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of things working against our students in poverty. I thought, "How can we ever make up for all of these things they are facing?" However, as I kept reading I was encouraged by the simple strategies that he suggest would help us overcome the things that are out of our control. I agree with Scott that our kids tend to give up easily. I love the strategies the author gave for building cognitive capacity. I believe that if we use some of those strategies, and help students build cognitive capacity, it will help them persevere more.
ReplyDeleteLike Adrianna, I plan to begin implementing some of these small strategies into our day. I love the idea of little brain breaks, small math exercises for building brain capacity, and the ideas he gave for engagement. I would love to discuss different ideas for implementation with my data team and see if they help our students with their focus and proficiency.
I really enjoyed reading this book. However, like Trisha, I felt a little overwhelmed by the number of the strategies that were given throughout the book. It’s definitely a reality check to be reminded of all the factors that our students are fighting against. For me, I really feel a good starting point to incorporate some of these strategies into my own teaching is to remind myself to focus on the impact that creating those positive relationship with students has such an all around impact on them. I sometimes get caught up with only being with students for one hour a week with getting the material taught, answering questions, and checking their work for understanding, that I need to remind myself to stop more often and focus just on building relationships.
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