Engaging Engagement in Pedagogy and Curriculum Inquiry
Here we conclude for now this “Pathway” with the question of engagement about engagement.
How can teachers, beginning teachers and student teachers, as well as other educational leaders, perhaps inspired by the voices in the sequence at the heart of this pathway, engage in new ways on the related questions of student engagement, teacher engagement and education as a whole? As a matter, as Plato put it, of a kind of participation the the becoming of truths, what ideas and practices can be opened to new processes of change as an ethical commitment in the name of education?
As a kind of process of transformation, learning is, in rural sites as much as anywhere, a matter of context, relationship and inquiry, and how these change as they encounter us, and we change as we encounter them.
From the work of this study, it appears that the more we engage the question of engagement, the more we find new trajectories to hazard in specific contexts, and emergent consequences with which to further engage. Before long, should we be able to sustain an engagement in engagement, entire new sets of practices and concepts become possible as what we know as education. For “New Pathways” are indeed forays into the unknown. In this case, we can see education as a set of practices and institutions whose centrally founded in consent, participation, engagement. One commitment to leadership in education is to keep the conversation going about the myriad forms this basic educational precept can take, to not acquiesce too quickly to knowledge where inquiry could proceed. It is a journey to take together.
We are looking to document the ways in which New Pathways may be taken up in education, in order to enrich the way, and inspire others to remain within their own. Please share your stories and ideas.
Selected Bibliography (links to pdf files open in a new window)
Most of the research on student engagement relates to higher education, and the subset that pertains specifically to rural education is scant. The selected bibliography below is intended to provide multiple ways into the question of engagement, with further avenues available for pursuit via article bibliographies. The studies are from a variety of disciplines and countries, and concern education rural, urban and online.
Thus enriched, the Pathways remain of local inquiries in innovative and collaborative practice. May you begin, or continue to search for, your own.
Barkaoui, K., Barrett, S.E., Samaroo, J., Dahya, N., Alidina, S. & James, C.E. (2015). Teachers’ Conceptions of Student Engagement in Learning: The Case of Three Urban Schools. In Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 61(1), 80-99.
Berland, L., Crucet, K. (2015). Epistemological Trade-Offs: Accounting for Context when Evaluating Epistemological Sophistication of Student Engagement in Scientific Practices. In Science Education, 100(1), 5-29.
Cavanagh, R. (2014). The Classroom Flow and Engagement Experiences of Western Australian Rural and Remote Secondary School Students. In Australian and International Journal of Rural Education, 24(1), 23-35.
Ginsberg, M. B. (2016). Shadowing a student shows how to make learning more relevant.In Phi Delta Kappan, 97(4), 26-30.
Lewis, A.D., Huebner, E.S., Malone, P.S. & Valois, R.F. (2011). Life Satisfaction and Student Engagement in Adolescents. In Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 40, 249-262.
Lietart, S., Roorda, D. Laevers, F., Verschueren, K. & De Fraine, B. (2015). The gender gap in student engagement: The role of teachers’ autonomy support, structure, and involvement. In British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 498-518.
Parsons, S.A., Nuland, L.R. & Parsons, A.W. (2014). The ABCs of Student Engagement. In Phi Delta Kappan, 95(8), 23-27.
Sharma, S. (2015). Determinates of Student Engagement – A Review Study. In Golden Research Thoughts 5(4), 1-7.
Stott, P. (2016). The Perils of a Lack of Student Engagement: Reflections of a “lonely, brave, and rather exposed online instructor. In British Journal of Educational Technology, 47(1), 51-64.
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