Qualities+of+Engaging+Work

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**Qualities of Engaging Work** (Adapted from //Working on the Work//, by Philip Schlecty)


 * ** Product Focus ** || The tasks students are assigned and the activities with which they are engaged are clearly linked in the minds of the teachers and the students to performances and products about which the students care and on which the students place value. ||
 * ** Affirmation of Performances ** || Persons who are significant in the lives of the student (parents, siblings, peers, etc.) are positioned to observe, participate in, and benefit from student performances or products, and to affirm the significance and importance of the efforts undertaken and accomplished by the learner. ||
 * ** Affiliation ** || Students are provided opportunities to interact and work with others on products and performances, benefiting both from social connectedness and a shared sense of purpose. ||
 * ** Novelty and Variety ** || Providing students with varied instructional approaches and/or varied modalities of sharing learning increases the opportunity for student motivation and engagement while creating multiple pathways by which they may store and access learning. ||
 * ** Choice ** || While the learning outcome is non-negotiable, providing students with choices or options for how to present or share their knowledge increases the likelihood that they will “buy in” to the learning and be more authentically engaged. ||
 * ** Authenticity ** || When students have a sense of meaning in purpose – either for the task they are asked to do or their purpose in the said learning – they are more likely to invest their attention to the learning and make connections to both past and future experiences and learning. ||
 * ** Clear Product Standards ** || When students understand the learning objective, the standards by which they are held accountable, and the criteria by which they will be measured they are more likely to be attentive to the task assigned and meaningfully engaged. ||
 * ** Safe Environment ** || When students feel they are in a physically and emotionally safe environment where success is expected and failure is valued as a part of the learning process they will be more inclined to take risks and share their understandings. ||

Do you know the Types of Learner Engagement?


 * Think and Respond: **How do you know your students are engaged? What strategies do you use to increase student engagement? Is there a quality of engaging work you would like to try to add to your current instrucitonal practices? Please explain.