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You know how engaged middle school students are-in their own emotions, relationships, and TikToks. How do you engage them in your ELA classroom?

It's tough! It's not just about holding their attention while they're in class. We need to provide the kind of real engagement that leads to real learning.

Research confirms (not surprisingly) that getting middle schoolers ready for college and career depends on it, and requires a truly engaging ELA curriculum.

The stakes are high. Sixth-grade students who fail a literacy course are more than 50% more likely to not graduate from high school.

Yet, on average, middle school ELA students spend less than 20% of class time engaged with the text. In a 50-minute class period, that's only 10 minutes of text.

At Amplify, we believe greater engagement with text is key not only for ELA success, but for all academics. That's why we created these four actionable principles of middle school ELA engagement.

Middle school is a moment-one we must seize.

First, here's why middle schoolers require an approach and curriculum designed just for them.

Young people at middle school age are becoming increasingly independent, and increasingly self-conscious. They need to feel respected and safe when they participate, especially when they make mistakes. They're super focused on their peers, but they still depend on guidance from you.

There's a lot going on in their worlds, and there's a lot going on in their brains. In fact, early adolescence is the second-biggest stage of rapid brain development.

The development is happening largely in the prefrontal cortex. It's the area that brain researcher Maryanne Wolf calls "the cognitive workspace." When it comes to middle school ELA curriculum, we want to use strategies that engage students in using their cognitive workspaces.

The 4 principles of middle school engagement

We believe these four principles are most essential to engaging middle school students in developing their literacy skills-and becoming confident, active learners.

1. Enable all students to work up. Providing multiple entry points and scaffolds so that every student can find their way into a text or activity. Here are some differentiation strategies:

1. Incorporate multimedia. Often a video dramatization or audio recording can help students connect with a complex text.

2. Scaffold with passage previews, read-alongs, and questions that make students want to re-read.

3. Don't forget vocab! Daily practice makes a huge difference, especially with assignments designed to challenge students at their level.

2. Provide just right feedback. At this age, it's important for students to see opportunity rather than failure.

1. Quick over-the-shoulder notes feel actionable and encouraging.

2. Training all students to offer helpful comments creates a positive vibe around feedback.

3. Focusing on specifics helps students know how to proceed and improve.

3. Engage multiple modalities, especially collaboration. Students comprehend text in all sorts of ways-hearing, speaking, writing, seeing, performing, and more. Try alternate modalities like dramatic readings or debates, which also give students the benefits of working together.

4. Promote critical thinking. This one's the biggest idea beneath all the others.

To be fully engaged, middle schoolers need to know that their work is relevant and recognized. A truly engaging curriculum supports a range of observations and interpretations. Some approaches:

1. Be clear that the text, not the teacher, has the answers. Ask questions like How did you get to that response? Help students follow this rule: If you can justify it in the text, you can hold on to your interpretation.

2. Guide students to develop theories rather than get it right. For example, ask questions like Why does (or doesn't) this make sense?

3. Try the Socratic style. Emphasizing inquiry and discussion brings home the power of open-ended questions. It also positions the teacher as facilitator, not deliverer of all knowledge.

These principles won't just help your students get through middle school-they'll help you get through to your middle schoolers.

Learn more.

Read more about Amplify ELA, including an overview of the components of the curriculum in grades 6-8.

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4 ways to engage middle school students in ELA

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Explore four key principles that support students and encourage them to develop critical thinking skills in middle school ELA curriculum.

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I have spent the better part of the last decade providing targeted support to schools, educators, and students requesting advice on improving engagement at their Tier 1 level. Through this experience, I have re-engaged students who are re-entering school after hiatus, coached teachers who faced chronic absenteeism, and helped schools develop infrastructures to support better staff, community, and student engagement.

Over the years, I have come across numerous interpretations of student engagement. That's because there is no single way to describe what student engagement looks like, how it's measured, and how to promote it. I often find that lack of student engagement is a barrier between the instruction and the students' learning, and finding a solution to improve student engagement is never easy.

The bottom line is that student engagement occurs in a myriad of ways. This makes tackling it so challenging. Student engagement is not one-dimensional. It is highly individualized. Any solution to improve student engagement needs to be an adaptable and collaborative effort with our students. While student feedback is important, as educators, we have more control over student engagement than we realize! Through strategies and daily practices, teachers can create an environment where students are engaged from the first day of school to the last.

What Is Student Engagement?

The National Center for Safe Supportive Learning Environments defines student engagement as "the psychological investment a student makes in learning," (NCSSLE, 2022). Rather than focusing on one standard definition of engagement, we can look at individual engagement domains (like behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, and social engagement) to better understand the complexity of student engagement. By understanding and identifying different levels of engagement, we can begin to target root causes for disengagement. This effort can lead to better alignment of appropriate supports for our Tier 1 instruction.

Linked directly to participation

Demonstrated through actions or outcomes like completing tasks, attendance

Linked to investment or interest

Demonstrated through intellectual conversations, enjoying deep thinking, and reading to find deeper meaning

Linked to emotions and commitment

Demonstrated through enthusiasm, optimism, and confidence in school and related activities

Like fostering a deep love of reading or love for science or math, school staff and communities can cultivate student engagement through strategies.

Learn more Student Engagement: Why it's Important and How to Promote it

What Is the Root Cause of Disengagement?

Symptoms showing a lack of student engagement can include: student nonattendance, misbehavior, inattention to task completion, and poor peer interactions. Oftentimes, we attempt to isolate these symptoms, using interventions to address the symptom but not the problem. These interventions may or may not work because we are not addressing the root cause of disengagement. For example, implementing a behavior chart attached to a reward system may encourage a student to complete tasks for a week or so, but eventually, the novelty of the reward will wear off, and the symptom, lack of task completion will reappear, or a new symptom of disengagement may surface.

I learned this firsthand in my own classroom. When I was a new special education teacher, I took an Equitable Access course which introduced me to valuable insights on student engagement:

"Student engagement' itself might well be a misnomer, suggesting that engagement is somehow located in students, when in fact, analyses of the data we collected argued that students, like teachers and community members, are engaged in schools when schools are engaging places to be." (Vibert & Shields, 2003)

It's easy to point to factors outside of our control as the culprits to disengagement-such as community/home issues, lack of sleep, too many activities, or perceived student characteristics. While outside factors can play a part in how we differentiate to meet our student's needs, this avenue of thinking to address disengagement rarely helps improve student outcomes. These outside factors may cause distractions, but students that face these scenarios have the ability to be engaged when the environment poses an opportunity for engagement that arouses their attention.

This was my A-HA! moment. Waiting until I noticed student disengagement was too late to proactively address the problem. Also, laying blame for places or factors that I could not control would not solve the issues I had with engagement within my classroom. I could not just wait it out until a new batch of students came through my doors the next year.

It was my responsibility to create an environment that captured ALL students' engagement-and what better way to learn what would make my environment more engaging than by asking my students directly? I posed a few questions to my sweet, disengaged learners like, "My dears, what would make you want to learn with me today?" and "What would make you like this class more?"

Of course, I expected some responses like, "let me sit by my friends" and "let me play games, listen to music, etc.". But, most often, disengaged students could identify actionable changes to the instruction, environment, and curriculum that would increase their engagement.

My results were specific to my students and my classroom. Still, current results on school climate and engagement surveys suggest that student engagement is commonly linked with student connectedness to the learning or learning relevancy, student control over learning, intellectual challenge and expectations, classroom climate and interaction, and diversity (NCSSLE, 2022).

Student engagement is largely within our control, but lucky for us, we don't have to go as far as to hold rave parties in our classroom to get our students interested in learning! To save us all from resorting to dancing at the front of our classrooms, I have compiled a "Top 10 Engagement Strategies Countdown" to help you make your Tier 1 core instruction engaging for ALL students that I have used in my own classroom and supported other teachers and schools in using.

Top Ten Countdown: Daily Practices To Engage All Students at Tier 1

#10 and #9 - Stress and Health

While stress and health are factors outside of the school's control, they are integral to students' participation. Stress, healthy eating, sleeping habits, screen time practices, and sickness all impact a student's ( and teacher's!) ability to stay focused and engaged.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs coined the idea that our basic needs must be met before actualizing and learning (Huitt, 2007). Unfortunately, many students face food insecurity, homelessness, and other adverse childhood events. While as teachers, we are limited in our ability to provide for all of these needs, we can ensure our classroom is a place of safety.

Try this:

Related Resource: Spotlighting School-Based Interventions that Support Students' Mental Health and Well-Being

#8 - Understanding Disabilities

Students with disabilities have great abilities; hence, we must understand both and focus on their abilities. Undiagnosed learning disabilities or unaddressed learning disabilities impact students' ability to learn. We don't all have to be special education teachers to learn about learning disabilities and how to support students challenged with learning disabilities within our classrooms. Inclusion (the idea of educating all children in the same classroom, to the benefit of all) plays a vital role in students' confidence levels and feelings of belonging.

Try this:

Ensure you are planning and delivering data-based, differentiated core instruction. Differentiation tailors instruction for ALL students' readiness levels, interests, strengths, and learning preferences (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013). Incorporate small groups, varied learning activities, and flexible scheduling into your instruction so that differences between learners are undetectable by other students.
#7 - Choice

Student choice empowers learners to define and monitor their own learning goals. Choice encourages learner independence by putting the student in the driver's seat to decide what and how they will learn various standards.

Try this:

Choice can be tricky because a disengaged learner may not respond to choice without having additional support. You can start small by offering choice activities that pair with learning standards, choice groups, or even choice seats in the classroom! These are all factors that empower students to be decision-makers in their learning.

Related Resource: Giving Students Agency With a Seat at the MTSS Table

When discussing student-teacher relationships, we aren't talking about friendships, fun, giggles, or "being cool" (though, as teachers, we are all cool). Student-teacher relationships refer to TRUST. To build TRUST with our students, we can use the old adage, "Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't be mean when you say it."

Try this:

Greet students by name daily.

Honor your student's talents and interests.

Be a good listener; model active listening when your students want to talk to you.

Honor the commitments you make to students.

Show up and give your best self; let your students know that you genuinely believe that learning is fun and your time together is valuable.

#5 - Opportunities To Respond (and Receive Feedback)

Opportunities to Respond (OTR) is an effective, evidence-based teaching strategy defined by the use of teacher/peer questioning, student response, and immediate feedback. Offering opportunities to respond at an increased rate increases academic engagement. The cycle of OTR encourages engagement.

Try this:

Ask questions that stimulate interest. My favorite OTR was a "whip around," where every student had an opportunity to provide a quick answer to a question related to the content we were learning. I loved asking for a "summary tweet" of our recent lessons during whip around. Ensure all students are provided OTR.

Use choral response to increase overall OTR throughout a class period.

#4 - Strengths-Based

A strengths-based approach to teaching and learning allows us to focus on our student's strengths. It promotes an environment where students see their value and worth instead of focusing on negative characteristics.

Try this:

We focus on student strengths and development of skills through a strength-based lens, use positive language, and highlight growth areas.

Learn more about strength-based learning The Power of Strength-Based Instruction

#3 - High Expectations

Strengths-based teaching and high expectations go hand in hand! Our perceptions of our students change the expectations we have for our students. Our expectations of student achievement account for nearly one full year of learning growth (Hattie, 2009).

Missing the mark on appropriate expectations can cause students to feel bored, defeated, and even hopeless. Hattie's research also indicated that students can feel a "chilly" classroom climate, or one in which they know the teacher wants to avoid them or demonstrates certain students hold less value because the teacher has lower expectations of them (Smith, 2001).

Try this:

Communicate high expectations and provide increased support to students to increase engagement, for example, proximal seating, lots of eye contact, praise.

Provide feedback to all students; include constructive feedback for improvement so that all students understand expectations. Rubrics help all learners understand and meet the highest level of expectations.

Praise all learners for their efforts.

Create a mindset that no matter how a student performed in the past, it's within your ability to move them forward in their learning.

#2 - Relevancy

Have you ever had a student engaged in your class and disengaged in another? The student likely felt the content, delivery, or activity was more relevant, relatable, or real. Students, like anyone, are more engaged in what they find interesting and relevant to their lives.

Try this:

You may have content that is not as relevant, or it doesn't come to life as much as you would hope. If this is the case, pair the content with a learning activity that is more relevant and real to the student, like a video game, creating text messages, tweets, or TikTok.

Encourage students to determine how the content is personally relevant; thus, collaboratively, you can determine activities that will enhance this connection.

Afford the students opportunities to make suggestions to increase relevancy in their activities to understand new content.

#1 - Structure

Consistent, explicit routines and structures allow ALL learners to access their learning within the classroom. In my experience, inconsistent structure and behavioral expectations cause disengagement.

How we structure our classroom should never be a surprise to our students. Structure can include expectations of how they will access their materials, how they can move about the room, consistent routines for homework and assignments. Create environments where the challenges are placed on learning new content and not figuring out new procedures.

Try this:

Create consistent structures. How will students enter the room? How will students participate? Can students engage with peers? Establish guidelines and communicate them with your students.

Make the learner experience predictable. Students should know what to expect when they enter your classroom. They should know where to find their materials and explain this to others. If you need directions to find the directions, consider addressing your predictable learner experience.

No surprises. If you want something specific, teach it! As a secondary teacher, I spent a lesson helping my students learn how to shake the colored pencil box, so they only took out one colored pencil at a time. Why? Because that was a pet peeve, and I wanted us to be set up for success together. Don't assume that students understand your idiosyncrasies. Also, don't assume that the older the student is, the less you need to teach them about these skills. The older a student is, the more teachers they have had contact with. Thus, it becomes even more important to be explicit about teaching YOUR structures and routines.

While this list is lengthy, it is not exhaustive. Many strategies and practices on the Top 10 list take little to no effort and, with mindset shifts, can be easily incorporated into our daily Tier 1 instructional routine. Though student engagement has intrinsic components, there is no doubt that we as educators can create environments that promote and foster engagement. The more strategies and practices you incorporate into your Tier 1 instruction, the more likely you'll reach all of your learners!

Huitt, W. (2007). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. RetrievedFebruary 14, 2022 from, http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/regsys/maslow.html

National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments (NCSSLE). (2022). Student engagement. Office of Safe and Supportive Schools to the American Institutes for Research (AIR), US Department of Education Contract Number 91990021A0020. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/training-technical-assistance/education-level/higher-education/strategic-planning/student-engagement

Smith, D., Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2021). Removing Labels, Grades K-12: 40 Techniques to Disrupt Negative Expectations About Students and Schools. Sage Publications.
Sources:

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Top 10 Student Engagement Practices For Tier 1 in MTSS

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Through strategies and daily practices, teachers can create an environment where students are engaged from the first day of school to the last.

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A look at how to adapt a well-established technique for boosting student motivation in distance learning or hybrid classrooms.

Tapas Biswas / Alamy Stock Photo

Whether in person, virtually, or in some blended or hybrid model, many teachers are finding it more difficult than ever to keep their students motivated to learn. If you're a new teacher this year, student motivation can be an even tougher nut to crack. I've found it helpful to revisit ideas I explored during my teacher training, and one that has been helping me through today's unprecedented circumstances is the ARCS Model. Developed by educational psychologist John Keller, ARCS highlights the importance of attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction in stimulating learners and maintaining their focus during learning activities.

For educators looking to improve student motivation, evaluating whether these elements are present in learning is a good place to start. From there, small steps can be taken to apply each element with the help of both tech-based and traditional tools, which can make a notable difference in motivating students and improve outcomes.

Like all of us, students are more willing to invest their time and focus when they are interested in a topic. Likewise, sitting through the same routine lesson structure day after day can quickly lead to disinterest.

Perceptual arousal: Capture interest with the element of surprise or uncertainty. Storytelling, humor, and active learning experiences are proven ways of grabbing students' attention, but what about entering text upside down or in code on a slide, posing the opposite point of view from what is expected, or changing the environment, like switching up your Bitmoji classroom background? Give students a jolt of educational caffeine when their attention wanes.

Interest arousal: Stimulate an attitude of inquiry by posing challenges or novel ideas. Project-based learning fits in here, as students are often driven by the desire to solve problems, explore, and create. Explore using shorter-term thinking challenges and brainstorming events that push kids to consider ideas beyond the ones you present.

Variability: Following the same structure day in and day out can quickly lead to boredom, so mix it up. With kids on devices for much of the day, opportunity for variation is at their fingertips. Have them experiment with a new tech tool you've been hearing about, or ditch tech altogether and give kids a screen break from time to time with interesting paper-based instruction or projects.

In order for students to want to learn, they must feel that what they're learning matters to them. Understanding how a new skill or information is applicable to or will help them now or later on in life can make a big difference in motivation.

Relate to goals: Be explicit in connecting what students are learning with when, why, or how they can use this in the world beyond the classroom. Help students consider and define their own goals, and support them in making connections between their goals and what they're learning.

Match interests/familiarity: When possible, allow learning methods to align with students' interests. Author and professor Christopher Emdin, creator of the #HipHopEd social media movement, has integrated science and hip-hop to motivate high school students with great success. Understanding students is key to ensuring relevant instruction for them.

Confidence

When students believe they can succeed and feel positive about their achievements and potential, their confidence increases and motivation improves. Clear directions, useful guidance, and consistent formative feedback help students know what is expected and how to make progress.

Success expectations: Build a positive expectation for success. Enable students to take knowledgeable ownership of their progress by providing them with the steps they need to take to succeed.

Success opportunities: Facilitate successful learning by supporting or enhancing students' belief in their competence. Help students strike a balance between effort and results by giving the opportunity to achieve success through varied and challenging experiences that build upon one another.

Challenge students to find success while thinking outside the box with a digital escape room. Explore the many great ones (including some that are free) from Breakout EDU or create your own.

Personal responsibility: Provide students with personal control over their success. When people feel their success is based on their own efforts and abilities, rather than on external factors like luck or the decisions of others, their confidence improves. Present choices when possible so that students can select the path for which they feel most prepared.

Satisfaction

To sustain optimal motivation, learners need to have positive feelings about their learning experiences and accomplishments. Satisfaction can come from a sense of achievement, value, or inherent joy in the act of learning; from external reward systems or praise; or from the belief in a sense of fairness.

Intrinsic satisfaction: Provide opportunities to apply new learning in personally meaningful ways and foster personal recognition. Allow students to showcase their efforts to increase a sense of accomplishment and share the positive benefits of their learning.

Rewarding outcomes: Positive reinforcement and motivational feedback can lead to extrinsic motivation that many students desire. Grades, privileges, certificates, and other tokens of achievement can provide motivating recognition for efforts. Likewise, feedback from peers, teachers, parents, and members of the community at large can be highly satisfying for students who have put forth effort and want others to know.

Fair treatment: To feel satisfied, students must feel that there was equity in the objectives, activities, and grades in a learning activity. If they suspect favoritism, bias, or unfairness, students are more likely to be turned off and lose the motivation to learn.

Try this: Elicit student feedback often. Create a quick feedback survey with Google Forms to share with students regularly or to include with major projects. Surveys-anonymous or not-can often give quieter voices a forum in which to be heard and can tune teachers and other students in to perspectives other than their own.

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A Powerful Strategy for Fostering Student Motivation

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A look at how to adapt a well-established technique for boosting student motivation in distance learning or hybrid classrooms.

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We're tackling one of the biggest challenges educators face today: keeping students engaged in a world full of distractions.

AJ Juliani joins me to explore how to create meaningful and relevant learning experiences that resonate with today's learners, even in the age of TikTok, smartphones, and endless notifications.

He's an educator, author, and speaker who serves as an instructor for the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (PLN). AJ has worked towards innovative learning experiences as the Director of Learning and Innovation for Centennial School District, as Curriculum Coordinator, as Tech Director, English teacher, football coach, and K-12 Instructional Coach. His favorite role is being dad to five kids. You might know AJ from his books Adaptable, Empower, Launch, or The PBL Playbook.
Here's what you'll learn:

Why simply removing phones or distractions won't solve the engagement problem.

How to balance direct instruction with collaborative, student-centered learning.

Why meaningful, relevant tasks are more effective than "rigorous" assignments for long-term learning.

The "traffic light" system for integrating technology and AI into classroom activities.

How to help students develop focus, self-regulation, and intrinsic motivation.

Strategies for using choice and ownership to foster deeper learning experiences.

The surprising truths about rigor, assessment, and knowledge transfer.

How to create performance tasks that build real-world skills and make learning stick.

Why human connection and relationships are more vital than ever in education.

Practical advice for building long-term habits of engagement that go beyond quick fixes.

AJ also shares insights from his latest book and offers actionable strategies for educators who want to make their teaching meaningful and impactful in a rapidly changing world. Continue reading, or listen to our conversation using the podcast player below.

Listen to episode 321 below,
or subscribe in your podcast app

The growing challenge of student attention
ANGELA: So, the ability to focus one's attention has been a growing challenge for students, especially over recent years. Can you talk about what you're seeing and hearing in classrooms and the factors that seem to be contributing to these issues?
AJ: Yeah, this is a perfect storm, isn't it? It's a perfect storm of a lot of things happening. We had all these one-to-one initiatives, everybody getting devices. Then a pandemic comes. Now everybody's really asked to have devices. We put everything online, learning management systems, and not to mention the phones in everybody's pockets and everywhere.

But we're seeing in a lot of classrooms right now, teachers talking about kids being distracted, apathy, and there's an actual famous researcher and consultant by the name of Linda Stone that coined a term, a phrase for what we're all feeling, which is continuous partial attention. It's the easiest way to sum up what's happening in our classrooms and really just in our world, which is we're not just dividing our attention. We are giving attention to so many things at once.

Because of notifications and just our general need to check in and see what's going on, it's becoming a really big struggle. I always do activities with folks talking about how hard it is to learn when you multitask. Now think about your mind going 25 different directions, kind of like the tabs that you have open. I'm looking at my computer right now-I've got about 15 tabs open. Or if I swiped up on my phone, I could imagine I'd have another 15 apps that are open. Think about your brain like that. It just makes it very difficult to pay attention. What people are feeling is very real, and it's not just the kids. It's also the adults who are feeling this because we're living in this world too.

A vision for evolving education
A lot of people think the situation is hopeless. It seems to be getting worse every year, and phones are taking over our lives more and more. They also tend to feel like there's not a lot that teachers can do about it because this is not a school-specific or student-specific thing. But you are imagining something better. What is your vision for how education can evolve to better meet the needs of learners in a world that is full of distractions and continuous partial attention?
There are a lot of different avenues we can go down, and it looks different for different ages. I was turned on to the work of Dr. Mark D. Esposito, and he works at the Berkeley Brain Imaging Center. His research is fascinating. He basically says we have two competing networks happening in our brain. One is the task-positive network, and the other is the default mode network. You can imagine the task-positive network is when we're getting things done, making progress, and able to focus. The default mode network is kind of what has happened through evolution and throughout history, where we are scanning for threats and new information.

The issue we're having right now is every time we get a notification, it puts us into that default mode network. Unlike people thinking, "Oh, right brain and left brain," these networks cannot operate simultaneously. It's like a neural seesaw: task-positive goes up, default goes down; default goes up, task-positive goes down. He has five steps that can really help us think about how to design our lessons, classrooms, and spaces.

The first one he talks about is the 25-5 rule. It's kind of like a Pomodoro timer type of thing. We can only live in that task-positive network for about 20-25 minutes. For younger kids, it's a much shorter period of time. You have to give yourself time to let that default mode run. In a classroom, that could mean brain breaks or other activities. You have to give the brain time to allow for scanning if you want to get back to that task-positive state. It doesn't help if we go from one task-positive activity straight to another without reflection or metacognitive time. That time is huge.

Another piece is creating a threat-free zone. This means eliminating distractions, like getting cell phones out of the classroom or snoozing laptops. It's about actually having focus time. He also talks about scheduling scanning time just as we schedule threat-free time. But I think the most impactful step for teachers is to create focus-use triggers. This could be a playlist kids are used to or a specific location or ritual that signals focus time. Something like that helps kids get into the task-positive network.

As we think about how educators can move forward, we really need to look at the science and acknowledge that powering through lesson after lesson doesn't work. Giving time to let the default mode process is a big piece of the puzzle.

Competing with TikTok for students' attention
One of the things teachers feel is that they're having to compete with TikTok and other really engaging platforms. A challenging lesson that requires students to focus and exert sustained attention is never going to have the same appeal as passively consuming something designed for entertainment in 10-second bursts. What are your thoughts on the idea that teachers can't compete with TikTok? How can we design lessons that naturally capture students' attention?
It's very tough to compete with TikTok and similar platforms. They're really good at grabbing attention. But I think sometimes we misunderstand why TikTok is so engaging. It's not just about entertainment.

A study shared on the Freakonomics podcast asked how much students would have to be paid to give up social media for a month. The results were fascinating. Students said they'd pay to have their friends and family give it up too. This highlights the importance of belonging. It's not just the tech itself-it's the connections it facilitates.

Rethinking cell phones in the classroom
Technology, especially cell phones, presents significant challenges in the classroom. Since the release of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, many schools have moved to ban cell phones altogether.
Early on, some viewed phones as a way to engage students, but opinions are shifting. Phones are undeniably a big distraction. For example, even in places where phones are banned, like in France, students still bring them and hide them. Removing distractions doesn't necessarily solve engagement problems.

The real issue is how we structure learning. Engagement isn't just about eliminating distractions; it's about fostering achievement and motivation. Without moments of achievement, it's hard for students to stay motivated.

A famous story highlights this: a struggling student scored 1480 on the SAT and believed he was smart, transforming his outlook and future success. Later, it turned out the score was a mistake. What changed his life wasn't the actual score but believing he was capable of achieving. These "1480 moments" are crucial in helping students feel successful and motivated.
How do we get more of those 1480 moments? What do we need to restructure to do that?
The big thing for me is that we're often just assessing the final product, the final task, instead of the learning process and the energy or output that kids put into it. Think about a kid in elementary school working on a diorama project. He's putting in a lot of effort, but he doesn't have two parents at home helping him. Maybe the teacher helped him a little, but he comes to school on the day the project is due, proud of his work. Then he looks around and sees another kid's project that looks better, or another student's project that's clearly been helped along by family members. He starts feeling down about himself.

Imagine being that student and being graded solely on the final product. He's not being recognized for his guts, resiliency, integrity, or tenacity. I think we need to reframe how we assess, especially to allow for more of those 1480 moments that aren't tied exclusively to the final product. It's about recognizing effort, process, and growth in addition to the outcome.

Grading effort vs. reimagining assessment
Is that grading on effort, or do you see it differently?
There's a lot of talk about this. The San Francisco College Track, for example, created a "grit rubric," which includes:

Guts - The courage to take risks and persevere through challenges.

Resiliency - The ability to bounce back from setbacks and keep moving forward.

Integrity - Staying true to one's values and demonstrating honesty.

Tenacity - Demonstrating determination and persistence in achieving goals.

Jen Gonzalez also talks about single-point rubrics, which I love. The focus shifts to assessing specific areas-whether it's creativity, independence, collaboration, or something else. It's not about ranking kids against each other based on their final product. Instead, it's about rewarding the time and energy they invested in the process.

If a student has paid attention, shown commitment, and put in the effort, that's worth celebrating. Maybe their final product doesn't compare to others, but they still went through the process and showed growth. We need to keep that momentum going instead of dampening their motivation with a low grade for not meeting every little rubric requirement. In today's world of distractions, it's so easy for kids to become disheartened and disengage from "the game of school."

One way to approach this is by rethinking how we structure assignments and projects. For example, we could do something Hemingway-style, where students write their essay in front of us, turning it in as a rough draft or a work-in-progress. Or, we could try project-based sprints, where students tackle something typically designed as a six-week project but complete it in two or three class periods, using technology strategically to speed up certain processes.

There are also approaches like guided discussions, where students defend their learning and reasoning, or even hybrid methods that incorporate both technology and traditional approaches. When you think about this in terms of a Venn diagram, you have "tech-compatible" on one side and "tech-resistant" on the other, with a crucial middle ground in between.

That middle ground includes things like project-based learning and performance tasks, where you can pick and choose when to use technology. This balance becomes key-not leaning too far into one extreme or the other but finding a way to make learning meaningful, efficient, and engaging.

You know coming out of the pandemic, it was like, Alright, now we use tech for everything. We have our learning management system where we're reading everything. It became an overload, right? Even the kids don't want it. And I think that's part of where we have to reflect as educators and be like, Alright, let's take a step back. What's our learning goal? Does the technology serve a purpose?

We're just using it as a teenage or student pacifier, just to kind of keep them busy and they can be on their technology. And those are the questions that we have to come up with. But it's not like tech is all bad. There are amazing things we can create with it if it's part of that purpose, especially if it's for real-time collaboration, editing feedback, creating all those types of things. It's a fantastic tool When kids have an authentic purpose and authentic audience that they're creating and making meaningful work.

Navigating AI doing the work for students
I think that's a great answer and I'm glad that you brought up the AI piece because that's one of the questions that teachers are talking about a lot in my AI program, the 40-hour AI, we're talking about streamlining teacher workloads with AI as so many of the secondary, particularly ELA teachers and others who have kids do a lot of writing are saying, "I'm having to completely change everything about the way that I teach. It's a total overhaul. Nothing that I used to do works anymore, because the kids are like, 'I can just use ChatGPT. I don't need to be able to write. I don't need to be able to do this." And they're experiencing a lot of frustration with that. What would you say to folks who are um trying to manage that situation?
Yeah, I think first take a step back-don't freak out, because I freak out a little bit, right? Working with college students and everybody. And I want people to think about how we have changed our practice so many times. Every time there is what I call a hinge of history-historians really call it that, but I stole the term because I love it-every time there's a hinge of history, we change our practice.

So, the printing press: hinge of history. We had to change what education looked like when that came around. You could go telegraph, radio, and television. Most of us, and most of the people listening to this, went through a world where the only technology we used in classrooms was Oregon Trail. If you think about it, back when we were using Oregon Trail, it was awesome. It was a lot of fun. It was a learning tool. But most of us thought about technology as a toy back then.

Now, all of a sudden, think about all the different types of things that we use it for: learning, work, everything else. The same thing happened with the internet-it completely transformed what we do, from Google and Wikipedia to all the tasks we do online. AI is going to be another one.

The issue I think so many people are freaking out about, me included, is that people at least used to have to work a little bit hard to go to Google, find sources, write, copy, paste, and cite things. Now, they can just say, "Write this for me," or "Do this math problem," or all those different types of things.

I saw a talk where this woman was saying, it's almost like we have to sometimes, with AI, reverse Bloom's Taxonomy. Start with creation. Work our way down. Evaluate the creation, then synthesize: What do we need to add to this from human knowledge and our human intelligence? Then go down to analyzing that and looking at others.

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Truth For Teachers - Meaningful and relevant: engaging learners in the age of distraction

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We're tackling one of the biggest challenges educators face today: keeping students engaged in a world full of distractions. AJ Juliani joins me to explore how to create meaningful and relevant learning experiences that resonate with today's learners, even in the age of TikTok, smartphones, and endless notifications.

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Holding Students Accountable- Teaching Strategies- Teaching Resources- Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning- Indi

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Four ways to engage middle-school students in ELA %

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Engaging Learners in the Age of Distraction

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Top 10 Student Engagement Practices For Tier 1 in MTSS (2)

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A Powerful Strategy for Fostering Student Motivation in Virtual or Hybrid Classrooms | Edutopia