This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 03 Dec 2009, by Tom Krieglstein.
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03 Dec 09
Tom KrieglsteinPart 2 - Introducing Dance Floors as a way to understand student engagement.
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Engagement is essential to progress at every level of the student success pyramid
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Engagement is essential to progress at every level of the student success pyramid. If the student is engaged, then they will, at whatever pace they need, find success. Achieving engagement is a responsibility of both the institution and the student - it's a combination of the design and the learner.
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Engagement has a strong element of choice and exploration, where persistence has echos of discipline and drudgery. Engagement, as a goal, can be happily shared by a student.
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Teaching students to be aware of their engagement, to expect it of themselves and to manage it to get what they want, is a very powerful addition to the standard curriculum
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Dance floors and college campuses work the same way.
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consistently see the "3s" clumped together in the middle
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People like to hang out with other people at the same level of engagement - "3s" with "3s" and "2s" with "2s"
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There is some natural friction between disparate states of engagement.
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Most people will increase their engagement slowly, needing time to make connections and increase their comfort, competence and confidence.
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"neutrals" will watch "3s" for inspiration, even while they get their next new move from the "1s"
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Everyone will likely be effected by everyone else, and the whole system, the whole dance floor, or the whole institution, will be judged by the collective average level of engagement.
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A good dance has all levels, but the average is high. At a good dance, a new person is likely to give it a go, just based on following the crowd's average. A bad dance is defined by a low average level of engagement. It's just not fun. More people will leave a bad dance (and be less inclined to attend the next one).
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Our college campuses, on average, are not great dance floors.
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If you ask one hundred people on the street, "What makes a bad dance?" ninety-nine of them will say bad music. They will blame the DJ. Just like students will blame professors or the activities department (as the analogous DJs on campus.)
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circles of friends trump bad DJs
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social connections are more important than music.
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While the DJ's music does matter, as does the professors' curriculum, focusing on social capital of students is a more effective method of increasing engagement and making a better dance floor.
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Research on college campuses supports this. The 2006 National Survey of Student engagement put it succinctly: "The most important factor in student engagement is the connections between the students." The dance floor analogy gives us further subtleties. There are crucial patterns to the connections.
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The goal is to increase the average state of engagement for the entire campus. We do this by moving one person, one level at a time. In short hand - the goal is simply X + 1.
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o help students maintain their engagement at every level of the success pyramid, education should design systems that use various technologies to provide dynamic assessment of engagement and interests to provide the following:
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1) Relevant introductions to other students who are at a similar level of engagement. Neutrals to neutrals, 1s to 1s, etc
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2) Connections to students who share interests, at a slightly higher level of engagement (X+1), for a model and a new, accessible, peer group in which they can develop competence and confidence.
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3) Visibility into the most engaged and most competent circles for inspiration.
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Social networking in general, and the many varieties of web 2.0 services, now allow us to map, teach, and intentionally facilitate the social learning systems of students.
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As students publish where they are at now - in words, pictures, or videos - systems can match them with other students who are producing similar content.
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As students progress, they'll leave a record of their educational path for other students to follow, providing many +1 examples
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The most successful students will continue to publish their content online, where it can serve as an inspiration to an unlimited number of students simultaneously.
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