gives rise to students who are fully engaged, motivated, and committed, persevering through problems with their learning networks and demonstrating expertise—all of which promote the tenets of engagement. As noted in the introduction, these are the three tenets of engagement.
1. The learner engages with relevant, worthy inquiries and experiences that are interesting or emotionally gripping.
2. The learner engages in an active, intentional cycle with clear goals and right-sized, actionable steps.
3. The learner engages in social, collaborative opportunities that grow expertise.
The tenets are not isolated aspirations; teachers, by following and emulating examples in this book, incorporate and grow these tenets throughout instruction to maximize engagement. Nor do they occur linearly. We stress that the tenets can occur in any order, happen repeatedly, or be omitted when appropriate—the choices are yours and your learners’. Let us look more closely at each tenet to examine the research, further explain the significance, and provide examples.
Relevant, Worthy Inquiries and Experiences
The first tenet is that the learner engages with relevant, worthy inquiries and experiences that are interesting or emotionally gripping. As a teacher, you may deem an inquiry topic worthy if it is motivational, meaningful, or joyful for the student. Science proves that long-term memory and passion for learning increase when students (with help from teachers, if necessary) connect to something that matters to them and they’re allowed to choose to pursue that interest (Bernard, 2010; Davachi et al., 2010; Evans & Boucher, 2015). Learners become motivated to try, believing a topic is a valid investment of their time and energy (Lambert, Gong, & Harrison, 2016).
Problem posing and critical thinking are vital here, since students must form questions and conclusions before and throughout their quests. The learner’s inquiries stem from his or her sense of curiosity and critical thinking, which stimulates action, conversation, and reflection. For example, elementary students may be interested in designing something to beautify their community. Instead of brainstorming good ideas in a vacuum, they collaborate with the people who will ultimately see the beautification on a daily basis and discover their concerns, challenges, and hopes for the space. Students then use that information to make an inquiry such as, How can we make something that has what people want and involve them in the making?
Another example might be high school students investigating and potentially acting on the global refugee crisis. When discussing current events in class, students may be aghast at the hardships refugees endure. They also may be sympathetic to the rights of sovereign nations that want to be compassionate but do not want to become flooded with new challenges. The questions that emerge are complex: Why are refugees being treated this way, and what can we do to help? Students investigate and collaborate with global organizations such as UNICEF and the United Nations, as well as national and local groups, to provide refugee assistance and examine the real fears people have when they see a new wave of refugees.
The beautification and refugee examples are a testament that student inquiries can drive a quest at the same time they address key standards. Elementary and middle school students can interview neighbors (speaking and listening), collect data on preferences and decide what to select (data and measurement), and design and execute the project (science and art). High school students can examine root causes of the refugee crisis (economics, geography, and history), propose solutions that demonstrate both nations’ compassion and sovereign rights (civics), and call people to action (argumentative writing and art). Instead of skimming the surface to arrive at an oversimplified solution, slower, in-depth study on a topic increases understanding. Immersed in ambiguity and uncertainty, the learners experience ideal conditions for learning. This condition can be brief or extended—either way, it primes the brain for engagement. This is why deeper, questing-type learning makes such a difference for the learner. He or she is building knowledge differently than before. In fact, we propose that questing, as a pedagogical framework, offers bigger, deeper, more authentic opportunities for students to build content knowledge all while being interested, engaged, and ready to receive the new learning.
Active, Intentional Cycle
The second tenet is that the learner engages in an active, intentional cycle with clear goals and right-sized, actionable steps. The extended cycle of expertise, which is based on Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia’s (1993) and James Paul Gee’s (2007) work, is intentional and actionable because it has goals. Teachers can intentionally build the cycle of expertise, shown in figure 2.1, in an instructional sequence. Students need to be invested in a new problem that will require new learning. When they hit the frustration zone, the level of engagement and need to hit the next level help them persevere through the new learning. They learn and solidify new skills through repetition and multiple iterations of problem-solving pathways, leaving them with a feeling of accomplishment as they master the specific challenge at hand.
Source: Adapted from Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993, and Gee, 2007, as cited in Alcock, 2014.
Figure 2.1: Extended cycle of expertise.
Each new challenging skill sends learners through this cycle. For example, an elementary school student might be given a mathematics problem with fractions. Because the student isn’t familiar with fractions, he or she will have to learn new skills to solve, or master, the problem. Because the student doesn’t yet have the required skills, he or she gets frustrated trying to solve the problem. With help, the student develops the skills he or she needs to solve fractions. Practice by way of repeating and applying the new skills in a carefully scaffolded manner helps the student solidify the required new skills. The student feels positive when he or she masters the skills and can repeatedly solve mathematical fraction problems. The student is willing and ready to try attaining more new skills. This results in the spiraling aspect of the extended cycle of expertise.
The extended cycle of expertise shows that the need for a sense of accomplishment (from positive feelings of mastery) couples with repeated success; it is that coupling that propels the momentum of learning toward the desire for cognitive challenge in a new problem or increased difficulty. The student needs this repeated success. Thus, a combination of appropriate-level challenge, timely feedback, and an observable growth in skill or knowledge creates a deeply satisfying learner experience. This extended cycle of expertise is an active cycle of clear goals (specific new skills) and right-sized (challenging but not impossible), actionable steps (presents specific goals).
Additionally, connecting the skills required to solve fractions to a meaningful quest means the learner is thinking deeply about the skills and concepts. When he or she masters the skills, the student, in effect, is an expert. Then the time is right for an increased challenge, a more difficult version of the fraction problem. When students experience frustration, their level of engagement and need to hit the next level of knowledge help them persevere through the new learning (Haskell, 2012). That tension propels students’ learning.
Goal achievement ceases to be the point for this student. The learner learns how to learn: contending with frustration, having the courage to try, persevering, seeing the immediate results, and figuring out what to do next. The learner also grows an ability to self-regulate (monitoring how one is doing and feeling), self-evaluate (stepping back and judging current work), and self-motivate (setting learning goals and committing to how one will achieve them; Stiggins, 2017). This occurs, in part, through the formative assessment process chapter 8 (page 97) describes.
Questing leverages the extended cycle of expertise by requiring students and teachers to do the
