Subject: Bored Students

Posted by Sharon Friesen on 12/29/2010
In Reply To:Bored Students Posted by Pedro D. Almaguer Prado on 12/29/2010

Message:

I have been following this discussion regarding bored students with great interest and believe I might have something to offer to this important discussion.

My research partners and I have been conducting a study in Canada into secondary school students levels of intellectual engagement.

We defined intellectual engagement as "a serious emotional and cognitive investment in learning, using higher order thinking skills (such as analysis, synthesis & evaluation) to increase understanding, solve complex problems, or construct new knowledge. see full report http://www.cea-ace.ca/programs-initiatives/wdydist

Our findings reveal that: (i) levels of intellectual engagement are low, about 35%; (ii) intellectual engagement decreases the longer students stay in school; (iii) levels of students experiencing boredom and anxiety (two extremes of a similar phenomenon) are high, and (iv) levels of engagement vary among schools, and suggest that the role of the classroom teacher may be as important, or even more important, than students’ family background.

We created a Teaching Effectiveness Framework to accompany the research report in which we identify a number of points that seem to have a significant sphere of influence over other points in the system. Having identified these, we outlined aspects of classroom instruction that classroom teachers and school and district administrators can address.

Our subsequent findings are showing that schools and school districts that have focused on these five identified instructional areas have seen statistically significant increases in levels of intellectual engagement. This change in instruction is accompanied by some significant changes in leadership, organizational and structural changes (eg. changes to timetables to allow for team teaching, interdisciplinary, real problem-solving and posing, etc.). Some school scores have risen from 30% to 60% over 3 years.

Sharon

Follow Ups:

Bored Students - Pedro D. Almaguer Prado 12/29/2010