A new study conducted by education experts at the University of South Australia (UniSA), in partnership with Flinders University and Melbourne Graduate School of Education, says teachers who focus on achieving high student engagement can help students achieve better outcomes.
Currently, though, researchers found that less than one-third of teachers are engaging students in complex learning – something they say is limiting student opportunities for honing critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
UniSA researcher, Dr Helen Stephenson, says teachers need more support to plan interactive and constructive lessons that promote deep learning.
Deep learning delivers lifelong benefits
“Deep learning is learning that engages greater cognitive processing and in this process knowledge construction through the organisation, reorganisation, and expansion of existing conceptual frameworks,” Dr Stephenson told EducationDaily. “Deep learning supports the information, recall, and transfer of information to different contexts.”
One example of deep learning, says Dr Stephenson, is proficient reading, where a student has learnt letters, letter combinations, punctuation, comprehension, and timing, and has the understanding to predict what a word is, even if letters are missing. This type of deep learning also helps a student reasonably predict what the next word might be in a sentence or story.
“But too often students are doing low-engagement, passive work,” Dr Stephenson says.
“In our study, around 70 per cent of classroom content was considered ‘passive’ (where students had little observable input) or ‘active’ where they may have been doing something simple, like answering questions on a fact sheet.
“While there is certainly a place for such tasks in a classroom, student learning is much improved when students spent more time engaging in complex activities that promote deep and conceptual learning.”
The value of critical thinking
For students that have easy access to ‘unfiltered’ global sources of information, nurturing critical thinking skills supports their ability to filter information – something that is essential for self-regulation and reflection.
“Deep learning requires the organisation of knowledge into conceptual structures, which we know improves the retention of information and therefore improves learning outcomes. Deep learning also supports knowledge that’s needed for innovations,” says Dr Stephenson.
With even small changes to teachers’ existing lesson plans, educators can, says Dr Stephenson, make a positive difference.
“At a base level, teachers need to consider how they can adjust their existing classroom activities so that more tasks are on the deeper end of the learning scale,” Dr Stephenson says.
“Students can silently watch a video (which is ‘passive’); watch a video and take notes using the presenter’s words (which is considered ‘active’); write questions that arise for them while watching the video (which is ‘constructive’); or watch a video and discuss it with another student to generate different ideas (which is ‘interactive’).
“Interactive engagement in classrooms is where students are involved in activities with other students that stimulate them to develop deeper understanding. They’re making judgements, proposing and critiquing arguments and opinions, and working out solutions to problems. These activities can also help them to develop critical thinking and reasoning skills – all of which are predictors of improved learning.”
Lesson plans can boost engagement
One of the main findings the research revealed was that many teachers did not seem to know or fully appreciate the importance of how their lesson tasks could stimulate different modes of student engagement.
“Even changing class activities from ‘active’ to ‘constructive’ can go a long way towards improving student learning,” Dr Stephenson says.
“Teachers should be supported to undertake professional development to shift their thinking towards practices that support deeper learning and better outcomes for students.”
