Thank you for the great conversation, David and Martin. It is a really difficult issue. While I tilt toward Martin’s favoured ‘jazz quartet’, there are very real problems with leaving engagement in the hands of individual, human ‘mavericks’.
I always tell our marketing team not to bother photographing my class. They won’t see any Rube Goldberg machines that symbolise Macbeth’s character arc.
Yes and yes! I often wonder, during the fun projects, if anybody is learning anything. Sometimes fun projects are needed to build enthusiasm or a sense of community, especially at the beginning of the school year or when attention spans are short like before holidays.
But my philosophy is that nothing succeeds as well as success. As a middle school special ed teacher, I find students who are used to failing and used to being asked to do things they cannot do. There is no reason to try. Therefore, I plan my lessons as much as possible to students' levels, and then have them do real work. After a while, when they see and feel their achievement, they are surprised and proud. This is their motivation to try again next time.
"The uncomfortable truth: is that real engagement often doesn’t look like fun. It looks like silence, or frustration, or long moments of effortful thinking."
100%.
I think that with the rise of AI note-taking/summariser apps, there's a genuine (and very large) problem developing.
- Why think about anything, why even read the textbook, when 'ChatGPT' can 'summarise' it for you?
- Why pay attention to the lecture when AI-video-summary[dot]com can give you an 'overview' in 2 seconds?
- Why practice those Physics flashcards when ChatGPT is in their pocket and they can simply ask it?
Thank you for the great conversation, David and Martin. It is a really difficult issue. While I tilt toward Martin’s favoured ‘jazz quartet’, there are very real problems with leaving engagement in the hands of individual, human ‘mavericks’.
Looking forward to the next one.
I always tell our marketing team not to bother photographing my class. They won’t see any Rube Goldberg machines that symbolise Macbeth’s character arc.
Yes and yes! I often wonder, during the fun projects, if anybody is learning anything. Sometimes fun projects are needed to build enthusiasm or a sense of community, especially at the beginning of the school year or when attention spans are short like before holidays.
But my philosophy is that nothing succeeds as well as success. As a middle school special ed teacher, I find students who are used to failing and used to being asked to do things they cannot do. There is no reason to try. Therefore, I plan my lessons as much as possible to students' levels, and then have them do real work. After a while, when they see and feel their achievement, they are surprised and proud. This is their motivation to try again next time.
"The uncomfortable truth: is that real engagement often doesn’t look like fun. It looks like silence, or frustration, or long moments of effortful thinking."
100%.
I think that with the rise of AI note-taking/summariser apps, there's a genuine (and very large) problem developing.
- Why think about anything, why even read the textbook, when 'ChatGPT' can 'summarise' it for you?
- Why pay attention to the lecture when AI-video-summary[dot]com can give you an 'overview' in 2 seconds?
- Why practice those Physics flashcards when ChatGPT is in their pocket and they can simply ask it?
It is not a trivial problem to solve.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kealyd/p/cult-of-engagement?r=1b7uz0&utm_medium=ios This was my contemplation on engagement.