Academic Engagement: The Balance Game
ClasStars was built for educators to help kids succeed in the classroom. We’re built on four core values: Positive Engagement, Identifying Invisible Progress, Academic Engagement, and Real-Time Attendance. In this Q&A series, we dive into each of these four facets and how each one specifically can help you – and your students.
What is academic engagement referring to?
Academic engagement refers to positive feedback given by teachers, specifically regarding academic activity. So if you’re doing the times table, and you ask Norman or Sarah a question, their answer will either be correct or incorrect. Based on which the answer was, you can mark Norman and Sarah for positive or negative academic engagement.
What’s the problem with academic engagement in some classrooms today?
If you’re a teacher, you’ve definitely seen it before: there tends to be certain kids that get the teacher’s attention. They participate more in the classroom, raise their hands more often, and answer all the questions. As a result – sometimes not by design, sometimes cognizantly – teachers may call on some students more than others.
Academic engagement can also be viewed as earned positive feedback, which is effective for student success but needs to be both distributed evenly and balanced with entitled positive feedback (more on the latter in a minute). As such, it’s important to track your academic engagement with the kids in your classroom to ensure that everyone is receiving attention regarding lessons, teachings, and related questions.
What is the difference between academic engagement and the positive feedback that all students are entitled to (aka the “feel good stuff”)?
The main difference is that non-academic engagement – aka entitled positive feedback – is completely in the hands of the teacher. Students can come to school unprepared and unengaged, and the teacher can still control the positive feedback that they give back to them.
What’s not in the teacher’s control is whether students get positive academic engagement, because in order to receive earned positive feedback, the students need to be able to answer academic questions correctly. If they’re nervous, didn’t pay attention, or have forgotten what they learned, students will sometimes answer a question incorrectly in class – especially when it’s in front of the entire classroom. Sure, it’s more impactful positive feedback, but you can’t always control that. That’s why every child needs to be engaged positively, regardless of their academic performance.
Okay, so we need to give everyone entitled positive feedback every day, but also track and make sure that everyone has a chance to receive academic positive feedback. How can we balance the two?
Critics will argue that teachers should focus on “their jobs” – that is, teaching the students. However, that’s not how we look at it. A teacher’s job is more than just teaching material for assessments; it’s making sure that the students are set up for success so that when they are taught this material, they can actually learn and use it.
The other values of ClasStars – Positive Engagement, Identifying Invisible Progress, and Real-Time Attendance – focus on creating a positive environment in the classroom that sets up every single student for academic success. Once that positive environment is set up and becomes second nature to you, then you can focus on distributing opportunities for academic engagement and helping each and every student succeed.
Sometimes general positive engagement leads to positive academic performance. For example, Todd, who naturally has high anxiety and therefore can’t answer questions in front of the entire class, may become more confident overtime as he’s given daily positive feedback and eventually be able to answer academic questions as a result. Of course, one of the benefits of ClasStars is that you could see such progress and effect in real time.
This sounds simple enough. Why is ClasStars better at tracking academic engagement?
For several reasons:
1. It’s simple, quick, and easy: one swipe and a click.
2. It’s quick, but gives you room to be more specific about each engagement with pre-set options.
3. You can get key insights for the entire class in one screen.
4. We have a simple formative assessment option: Quick Quiz. Our algorithm focuses on kids who have the least amount of academic engagement, so you can distribute your earned positive feedback more evenly.
As with much else, the key with academic engagement is balance – balance with entitled positive engagement, and balance throughout the classroom. With the tools and insights from ClasStars, you’ll have a classroom full of academically engaged students in no time.
What is academic engagement referring to?
Academic engagement refers to positive feedback given by teachers, specifically regarding academic activity. So if you’re doing the times table, and you ask Norman or Sarah a question, their answer will either be correct or incorrect. Based on which the answer was, you can mark Norman and Sarah for positive or negative academic engagement.What’s the problem with academic engagement in some classrooms today?
If you’re a teacher, you’ve definitely seen it before: there tends to be certain kids that get the teacher’s attention. They participate more in the classroom, raise their hands more often, and answer all the questions. As a result – sometimes not by design, sometimes cognizantly – teachers may call on some students more than others. Academic engagement can also be viewed as earned positive feedback, which is effective for student success but needs to be both distributed evenly and balanced with entitled positive feedback (more on the latter in a minute). As such, it’s important to track your academic engagement with the kids in your classroom to ensure that everyone is receiving attention regarding lessons, teachings, and related questions.What is the difference between academic engagement and the positive feedback that all students are entitled to (aka the “feel good stuff”)?
The main difference is that non-academic engagement – aka entitled positive feedback – is completely in the hands of the teacher. Students can come to school unprepared and unengaged, and the teacher can still control the positive feedback that they give back to them. What’s not in the teacher’s control is whether students get positive academic engagement, because in order to receive earned positive feedback, the students need to be able to answer academic questions correctly. If they’re nervous, didn’t pay attention, or have forgotten what they learned, students will sometimes answer a question incorrectly in class – especially when it’s in front of the entire classroom. Sure, it’s more impactful positive feedback, but you can’t always control that. That’s why every child needs to be engaged positively, regardless of their academic performance.Okay, so we need to give everyone entitled positive feedback every day, but also track and make sure that everyone has a chance to receive academic positive feedback. How can we balance the two?
Critics will argue that teachers should focus on “their jobs” – that is, teaching the students. However, that’s not how we look at it. A teacher’s job is more than just teaching material for assessments; it’s making sure that the students are set up for success so that when they are taught this material, they can actually learn and use it. The other values of ClasStars – Positive Engagement, Identifying Invisible Progress, and Real-Time Attendance – focus on creating a positive environment in the classroom that sets up every single student for academic success. Once that positive environment is set up and becomes second nature to you, then you can focus on distributing opportunities for academic engagement and helping each and every student succeed. Sometimes general positive engagement leads to positive academic performance. For example, Todd, who naturally has high anxiety and therefore can’t answer questions in front of the entire class, may become more confident overtime as he’s given daily positive feedback and eventually be able to answer academic questions as a result. Of course, one of the benefits of ClasStars is that you could see such progress and effect in real time.This sounds simple enough. Why is ClasStars better at tracking academic engagement?
For several reasons:- It’s simple, quick, and easy: one swipe and a click.
- It’s quick, but gives you room to be more specific about each engagement with pre-set options.
- You can get key insights for the entire class in one screen.
- We have a simple formative assessment option: Quick Quiz. Our algorithm focuses on kids who have the least amount of academic engagement, so you can distribute your earned positive feedback more evenly.