Conceptualizing Student Engagement and Its Role in Meaningful Learning and Teaching Experiences

Student engagement is a crucial aspect of learning as it promotes understanding, enables learners to become responsible community members, and plays a crucial role in curriculum development. The concept has varied definitions that depict it as confusing and vague as exposed in this chapter. To demystify this confusion and vagueness, this chapter focuses on the levels of engagement and its associated formations rather than what it is. Three levels of engagement are discussed in relationship to their roles in promoting understanding of knowledge by learners, curriculum designing, and in formation of communities where knowledge, academics, students, and educational institutions interact. The discourse on student engagement conceptualization in this chapter reconciles its existent tensions with the value for education investments. Engagement is depicted as essential in promoting successful learner-instructor relations towards academic excellence and for reputable educational institutions. However, power imbalance of involved stakeholders impedes its optimal use by learners.

Five Case Studies on Tackling Real-World Problems as a Means to Increase Student Engagement

Five case studies detail teachers and professors who use a real-world problem as the basis for planning and implementing a comprehensive unit of authentic learning experiences aligned with academic content standards, instructed with high levels of rigor, and assessed authentically to determine the extent to which students mastered the standards. The text details how the instructor works with students to identify a meaningful problem, aligns appropriate work products to standards and instructional activities, and adapts the plan to address varying student learning needs. A mixed methods approach used student achievement data, student and teacher interviews, and a student survey. Increases were seen in students' self-efficacy, as well as their abilities to collaborate, communicate both verbally and in writing, engage in higher order thinking, conduct research, apply knowledge to novel circumstances, justify opinions, and assume leadership roles.

Meaningfully Engaging EFL Students in the Digital School

Technology is an integral part of our daily and professional lives and is gradually and steadily being introduced into state schools. As for the Greek context, the Digital School project was initiated in 2010 in state schools; digital platforms and materials were made available to teachers and students for the teaching of English. This study follows a mixed-methods approach and employs questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to explore English language teachers' beliefs and practices regarding the use of technology in state schools. The research focuses on how teachers use technology to maximise student engagement. The findings show a tendency from educators to embrace technology despite certain shortcomings found regarding the resources available, content- and technology-wise. Drawing from interview findings and teachers' practices, this chapter proposes educational practices that could be employed to foster student engagement and meaningfully integrate technology in English language classes.

Engage Me Through BigBlueButton

This study examines student engagement in an online environment concerning the perception regarding the course and the technology used. A research model was developed from the principal tenets of the expectancy-value theory to which values and expectations are assumed to influence how students build engagement. The model conjoins student perception related to course factors (content and rigor), technology factor (technology convenience), and student engagement (psychological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral). The model was tested using a sample composed of 328 business undergraduate students taking the courses online using the BigBlueButton e-learning system due to the global emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, respondents did not voluntarily choose the online teaching delivery method. The results imply that both course content and perceived technology convenience predict overall student engagement, while course rigor influences student cognitive, emotional, and behavioral commitment, but not psychological engagement.

Engaging Students in Emergency Remote Teaching

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in emergency remote teaching taking place globally. Despite the abrupt and rapid transition as well as the temporary nature of emergency remote teaching, it is possible to implement quality online teaching. Instructors can benefit from a review of findings and strategies found in online learning literature. This chapter discusses the challenges of emergency remote teaching and recommends suitable teaching strategies that can be quickly implemented by instructors. The focus is on strategies that can help to engage students by promoting learner-content interaction, learner-instructor interaction, and learner-learner interaction. This chapter also discusses strategies that can build a community of inquiry during emergency remote teaching. Future research directions are proposed.

Student-Centered Approach and Active Learning in Business Education

In recent years, the conception of learning has moved from a content delivery focus to experiential learning. In this regard, student-centered and active learning approaches are often recommended for fostering a meaningful experience for learners. This chapter discusses three key elements of student-centered learning—student choice, active learning, and student-teacher relationship—and notes examples from two Irish higher education institutions. Approaches like flipped classroom, interactive classroom, problem-based and collaborative learning, and case-based learning are discussed with examples from business education. Finally, the chapter concludes by offering recommendations and noting the potential of virtual learning environment tools in the post-COVID world.

Fostering Creativity and Joy of Learning Amongst Students in a Singapore Classroom Through Fun Design-and-Make STEM Projects

This chapter describes a classroom-based research of how the author makes an attempt to foster joy and creativity amongst his class of 38 students, averaging 13 years of age, who are in an academically low achieving group in a secondary school in Singapore. For this purpose, the author developed a simple candy floss kit project to teach science to them in science lessons, as well as guiding them to showcase their creativity through variations of the kit in design and technology lessons. An instrument was designed to capture the students' views towards the use of the project as a vehicle for them to showcase their creativity. This instrument infused elements from Guilford's and Torrance's frameworks for creativity (fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration) and indicators of product creativity (novelty, resolution, and style) through Besemer's Creative Product Analysis Model. Findings highlight that the students enjoyed doing the project and found it as a useful vehicle to showcase their creative use of science in the design-and-make process.

Reconfiguring Curriculum and Instruction to Teach for Understanding

This case study illuminates the application of the teaching for understanding and community of inquiry frameworks as complementary heuristics for designing curriculum and instruction in an online undergraduate course for improved student engagement and learning. A self-study methodology utilised predominantly qualitative data. The action research cycle incorporated data from course documents, teaching materials, learning analytics, and surveys, which were thematically analysed and triangulated. Five iterations of the redesigned curriculum were analysed focusing on integration of generative topics, understanding goals, performances of understanding, ongoing assessment, and reflective collaborative communities. The online instructional process was redesigned to build emotional presence, social presence, and teaching presence for improved engagement. The study concluded that the intentional curricula and instructional strategies brought about significant improvements in engagement and learning. Future research will be directed at analysing the curriculum and instructional techniques.

Podcasting Technology for Student Engagement and English Language Learning in the Japanese Context

Students are now expected to be able to develop the skills to use 21st century skills more than ever before, and to use them in English. However, the average university EFL student in Japan has limited English language skills or access to ICT in their education. Podcasting technology, relatively unknown in Japan, appears to offer great potential for improvements in the kinds of skills that will be in demand as students graduate into the workplace. This chapter examines the educational current situation in Japan and describes three different studies on the use of podcasts with university students.

Face-to-Face vs. Online Language Courses

The current pandemic experienced simultaneously worldwide has accelerated the demand for transitioning from traditional (face-to-face) education to its online equivalent. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the ubiquity of available online tools has become more apparent both for teaching and learning purposes but also for collaboration. Skepticism in relation to the use of online tools was quickly silenced not only due to the lockdown imposed by governments worldwide but also because of the major support these tools provide online, making themselves easy to use even to those who have traditionally objected to their effectiveness. Being part of this transformation of face-to-face classes and also someone with great experience in online teaching, the author explores in this chapter how this change has covertly affected students and teachers in tertiary education in relation to language classes. The study includes teachers of the languages and Literature Department and an international group of students, studying English for Academic Purposes at a private university in Nicosia, Cyprus.