Speaker 1: Hi everyone, this is Keri Kohl with Side-by-Side Educational Consulting, where we work side-by-side with educators to improve outcomes for all kids. We're in the middle of a really great video series right now on the five secrets to a highly engaged classroom. In our previous video, we talked about the difference between content and delivery. We honed in on that a little bit further by thinking about the content being the think ratio and the delivery increasing the participation ratio. And what I'd like to really expand a little bit further today in our second video is this idea of the difference between engagement and active participation, because that active participation is important in that idea of think ratio and participation ratio. We want to make sure that all kids are participating, and not only that, making sure that all kids are participating, but making sure that they're participating often, so that they're getting lots of practice opportunities. So let's think about this idea of engagement versus active participation. I think right now this idea of engagement and talking about engagement in education, it's a big deal. Everyone's talking about it. It's a buzzword. And I'm concerned that we're not really being nuanced enough when we think about that idea of what engagement really is. So I'm going to just talk about engagement from an active participation standpoint. When we look at just engagement, there's lots of different ways that you could perceive engagement. For example, if I walked in a classroom and a teacher was teaching, and all of the students were sitting at their desks, maybe they were listening, nodding their heads, I might say, that looks like a lot of active participation. That looks really great. But what I would challenge you to think about is, are they truly engaged, or are they just compliant? Are they just on task? Because there's a difference between on task or compliant behavior in a classroom, and real, true engagement. So I want you to differentiate between engagement, which can be misconstrued as on task or compliant, and really take it to the next level, which is active participation. What I would tell you is this. True engagement means kids are actively participating in a way that is visible. The learning is visible. So you're not going to be wondering whether the kids are learning. They're just sitting there listening. You would be wondering. There's nothing visible about their learning in that one moment. What you would see if there's true active participation in the classroom is that the learning is visible, and you have proof of their learning. It could be things like they turn to their partner and talk about what they just learned. They turn to their partner and summarize what they just read. They turn to their partner and reflect on a question that the teacher just posed. That would be one way to visibly see learning happening in the classroom, and that would be active participation. Another way that you could think about active participation is think about it from a perspective of writing. So if kids are writing about their learning, then that would be considered active participation as well. Active participation in writing doesn't mean just simply taking notes. It means that you're doing something with your learning, doing something productive. So you're taking what you've learned and doing something with it. And if they're writing about their learning, that would be visible. I could see learning happening. If I walked into a classroom and saw kids working on a science experiment, talking about what they're learning in their science experiment, that would be visible learning. That's active participation. If I walked into a classroom and saw kids showing what they learned, maybe they were acting out their vocabulary words, learning is visible to me. That would be active participation. That would mean that kids are actively participating in their learning and it was visible to me. So when we think about the difference, again, between just engagement and active participation, I want you to take engagement to that next level and say it's not true engagement unless the learning is visible. Okay, that wraps up this idea of engagement and active participation, which is our second secret to a highly engaged classroom. Tune in for the next video when we look at the third secret to a highly engaged classroom, which is increasing and providing lots of productive language opportunities. Thanks for watching. If you found this video helpful, make sure to give us a thumbs up. And always remember you can subscribe to our channel, we're releasing new videos all of the time.