When it comes to creating engagement, we are talking about ways in which you can bind learners into your lessons, making them feel a part of what is going on and motivated to pursue the learning objectives you plan.

Engagement helps create positive behaviour by giving learners a sense of meaning.

The lesson accords with their motives, rather than conflicting with them.

This means they feel positively predisposed to you, to what is happening, and to what you are asking them to do.

The result is greater focus and an attitude that fits with the classroom culture you want to build.

Engagement can also be thought of in contrast to its opposite – disengagement.

Disengagement sees learners detaching themselves from the lesson and the learning; making an active decision to psychologically remove themselves from what is happening and what you are asking them to do (often accompanied by a physical signification of this through body language and facial expressions).

Engagement, on the other hand, sees the opposite, with learners making the decision to actively take part in the lesson and the learning, with this choice reflected in what they do and what they say.

Why Engagement Matters

There are many possible answers to the question of why engagement matters.

The three I would suggest as most important are:

• Because it creates meaning for learners.
• Because it helps learners to focus their efforts effectively.
• Because it creates an environment that is inherently better than its opposite.

Let us look at each in turn.

Meaning is important.

Without it we can feel lost, alienated and disaffected.

Such feelings are uncomfortable.

We do not wish them on ourselves, and we do not wish them on others.

The feeling of alienation is, unfortunately, more common than we would hope in many schools.

It is often apparent in learners who do not believe the curriculum and what their teachers ask them to do has any purpose in the context of their lives.

It can also stem from a sense of failure or the inability to achieve status within the remit of what schools and lessons allow.

Being able to effectively focus your efforts is also important.

If we cannot do this then we may find ourselves frustrated – in an emotional sense, or in relation to the goals we are seeking to achieve.

Having to split our energies between multiple tasks at the same time decreases the efficacy of our efforts.

So does not being able to put all our focus on the matter in hand.

This, in turn, lessens our chances of success, reinforcing a negative-feedback spiral that often leads to an increasing lack of effort based on the perceived futility of working hard.

Engagement can alleviate both these problems.

In the first case, it provides meaning by tying the learning to something learners view as important.

This could be an intrinsic motivator such as wanting to see themselves do better than they have done already or an extrinsic motivator such as the possibility of achieving a good grade.

In the second case, engagement increases focus because it holds and directs learner attention.

This is for the simple reason that if we are engaged by something then we have a reason for attending to it.

In this sense, engagement can be its own reward; a self-fulfilling prophecy that sees us working hard because we are engaged and then reaping the benefits of this through a positive-feedback loop.

This leaves us with our final answer, that engagement creates an environment that is inherently better than its opposite.

This argument rests on the fact that we value different things in life.

And, in general, all of us value positive experiences that contribute to the growth and wellbeing of ourselves and other people.

For this reason, it is self-evident that engagement is preferable to its opposite.

Only through engagement can we ensure a higher likelihood of a compelling, positive classroom experience.

And when we get engagement right, positive behaviour usually follows.