Learning is at its best when it is goal-oriented, contextual, interesting, challenging, and interactive. These same winning characteristics also define the best computer games, which suggests that the most effective learning experiences are also engaging. Learning can and should be hard fun! The challenge is to get in touch with what it takes to design learning experiences that will excite your audience. Engaging Learning offers a much-needed guide for training professionals who want to create learning programs that are both effective and engaging. Clark N. Quinn Learning, a system designer, presents a unique framework for systematically aligning the key elements of learning and engagement with a proven design process for e-learning games. This nuts-and-bolts guide, which is both research-based and grounded in experience, offers the tools needed to transform learning experiences from humdrum to fun.

It's no secret that in today's complex world, students face unparalleled demands as they prepare for college, careers, and active citizenship. However, those demands won't be met without a fundamental shift from traditional, teacher-centered instruction toward innovative, student-centered teaching and learning. For schools ready to make such a shift, project-based learning (PBL) offers a proven framework to help students be better equipped to tackle future challenges. Project Based Teachers encourage active questioning, curiosity, and peer learning; create learning environments in which every student has a voice; and have a mastery of content but are also comfortable responding to students' questions by saying, "I don’t know. Let's find out together." In this book, Suzie Boss and John Larmer build on the framework for Gold Standard PBL originally presented in Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning and explore the seven practices integral to Project Based Teaching: Build the Culture Design and Plan Align to Standards Manage Activities Assess Student Learning Scaffold Student Learning Engage and Coach For each practice, the authors present a wide range of practical strategies and include teachers' reflections about and suggestions from their classroom experiences. This book and a related series of free videos provide a detailed look at what's happening in PBL classrooms from the perspective of the Project Based Teacher. Let's find out together. A copublication of ASCD and Buck Institute for Education (BIE).

Best Practices in Engaging Online Learners Through Active and Experiential Learning Strategies is a practical guide for all instructors and instructional designers working in online or blended learning environments who want to provide a supportive, engaging, and interactive learner experience. This book explores the integration of active and experiential learning approaches and activities including gamification, social media integration, and project- and scenario-based learning, as they relate to the development of authentic skill-building, communication, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills in learners. Readers will find guidelines for the development of participatory peer-learning, cooperative education, and service learning opportunities in the online classroom. In addition, the authors provide effective learning strategies, resources, and tools that align learner engagement with course outcomes.

A guide to developing productive student-faculty partnerships in higher education Student-faculty partnerships is an innovation that is gaining traction on campuses across the country. There are few established models in this new endeavor, however. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty offers administrators, faculty, and students both the theoretical grounding and practical guidelines needed to develop student-faculty partnerships that affirm and improve teaching and learning in higher education. Provides theory and evidence to support new efforts in student-faculty partnerships Describes various models for creating and supporting such partnerships Helps faculty overcome some of the perceived barriers to student-faculty partnerships Suggests a range of possible levels of partnership that might be appropriate in different circumstances Includes helpful responses to a range of questions as well as advice from faculty, students, and administrators who have hands-on experience with partnership programs Balancing theory, step-by-step guidelines, expert advice, and practitioner experience, this book is a comprehensive why- and how-to handbook for developing a successful student-faculty partnership program.

What motivates us to learn? We all want our students to be engaged learners, but we often struggle with getting them excited about and responsible for their own learning. In Engaging Children, Ellin Oliver Keene explores the question: What can we do to help students develop internal motivation or, better yet, engagement? Differentiating between compliance, participation, motivation, and engagement, she shows how to develop and recognize true student engagement in your classroom and help students take more responsibility for their learning. Explore the conditions where student-driven engagement flourishes. As a teacher, instructional coach, or principal you will learn to cultivate an environment for increasing student engagement. You will also explore four pillars of engagement that provide a framework for considering what it means to be engaged: Intellectual urgency: The compelling drive we experience when we choose to invest time and effort in learning; using questions to propel our learning forward. Emotional resonance: The ability to describe when a concept is imprinted on our mind and our heart; experiencing a strong emotional connection to what we learn or read. Perspective bending: An awareness of how others' knowledge, emotions, and beliefs shape our own; adjusting our thinking when challenged and relishing the opportunity to impact others with our ideas. The aesthetic world: A recognition of moments when we find something uniquely beautiful, captivating, hilarious, or meaningful; discussing a book, an illustration, a painting, or an idea that seems to have been created just for us. Truly engaged children are more likely to remember and reapply what they learn. Engagement provides authentic motivation for students and helps them become citizens who act on their learning for the betterment of the world. With Ellin's guidance, you'll discover how to help all children uncover their drive for deeper learning. Join the Engaging Children Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/EngagingChildren

This accessible book offers a fresh perspective on engagement, with an emphasis on how teachers can create the conditions for active engagement and the role learners can play in shaping the way they learn. Drawing on extensive theoretical knowledge, the book takes an applied approach, providing clear principles and practical strategies for teachers.

Children and young people with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (CLDD) have co-existing and overlapping conditions which can manifest in complex learning patterns, extreme behaviours and a range of socio-medical needs which are new and unfamiliar to many educators. Their combination of issues and layered needs – mental health, relationship, behavioural, physical, medical, sensory, communication and cognitive – mean they often disengage from learning and challenge even our most experienced teachers. This book provides school practitioners and leaders with an approach and resources to engage this often disenfranchized group of children in learning. The Engagement for Learning Framework has been developed and trialled by over 100 educational settings (both special and mainstream) with learners from early years to post-16. It gives practitioners from a range of disciplines a shared means of assessing, recording and developing personalized learning pathways and demonstrating progression for these children. The focus on inquiry means that however complex a young person’s needs, educators will be able to apply the approach. This practical and engaging book provides literature, tools and case study examples outlining who children and young people with CLDD are, why their engagement for learning is important and how the Engagement for Learning Framework can be used effectively by teachers and other professionals to ensure the best possible outcomes for these children.

The authors who introduced the concepts of Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) and choice-based art education have completely revised and updated their original, groundbreaking bestseller that was designed to facilitate independent learning and support student choices in subject matter and media. More than ever before, teachers are held accountable for student growth and this new edition offers updated recommendations for assessments at multiple levels, the latest strategies and structures for effective instruction, and new resources and helpful tips that provide multiple perspectives and entry points for readers. The Second Edition of Engaging Learners Through Artmaking will support those who are new to choice-based authentic art education, as well as experienced teachers looking to go deeper with this curriculum. This dynamic, user-friendly resource includes sample lesson plans and demonstrations, assessment criteria, curricular mapping, room planning, photos of classroom set-ups, media exploration, and many other concrete and open-ended strategies for implementing TAB in kindergarten–grade 8. Book Features: Introduces artistic behaviors that sustain engagement, such as problem finding, innovation, play, representation, collaboration, and more. Provides instructional modes for differentiation, including whole-group, small-group, individual, and peer coaching. Offers management strategies for choice-based learning environments, structuring time, design of studio centers, and exhibition. Illustrates shifts in control from teacher-directed to learner-directed, examining the concept of quality in children’s artwork. Highlights artist statements by children identifying personal relevancy, discovery learning, and reflection.

Engaging the Online Learner This updated edition includes an innovative framework the Phases of Engagement that helps learners become more involved as knowledge generators and cofacilitators of a course. The book also provides specific ideas for tested activities (collected from experienced online instructors across the nation) that can go a long way to improving online learning. Engaging the Online Learner offers the tools and information needed to: Convert classroom activities to an online environment Assess the learning that occurs as a result of collaborative activities Phase in activities that promote engagement among online learners Build peer interaction through peer partnerships and team activities Create authentic activities and implement games and simulations Praise for Engaging the Online Learner "The Phases of Engagement framework provides a road map for creating community at each phase of an online course. This book is an invaluable guide to innovative practices for online learning." Judith V. Boettcher, coauthor of The Online Teaching Survival Guide "Engagement is the heart of online learning. The authors have developed an encyclopedia of tried-and-true learner engagement activities that are authentic and ready to use." Donald P. Ely, professor emeritus, instructional design, development and evaluation in the School of Education, Syracuse University

Research on the brain has shown that emotion plays a key role in learning, but how can educators apply that research in their day-to-day interactions with students? What are some teaching strategies that take advantage of what we know about the brain? Engage the Brain answers these questions with easy-to-understand explanations of the brain's emotion networks and how they affect learning, paired with specific suggestions for classroom strategies that can make a real difference in how and what students learn. Readers will discover how to design an environment for learning that Makes material relevant, relatable, and engaging. Accommodates tremendous variability in students' brains by giving them multiple options for how to approach their learning. Incorporates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and guidelines. Uses process-oriented feedback and other techniques to spark students' intrinsic motivation. Author Allison Posey explains how schools can use the same "emotional brain" concepts to create work environments that reduce professional stress and the all-too-common condition of teacher burnout. Real-world classroom examples, along with reflection and discussion questions, add to the usefulness of Engage the Brain as a practical, informative guide for understanding how to capture the brain's incredible power and achieve better results at all grade levels, in all content areas.