Teachers’ Conceptions of Student Engagement in Learning: The Case of Three Urban Schools

Although student engagement plays a central role in the education process, defining it is challenging. This study examines teachers’ conceptions of the social and cultural dimensions of student engagement in learning at three low-achieving schools located in a low socioeconomic status (SES) urban area. Sixteen teachers and administrators from the three schools participated in two focus group discussions about their definitions of student engagement, indicators of and factors affecting student engagement, and how to facilitate it. The findings indicate that teachers’ conceptions of student engagement have profound ramifications for the ways that they approach their work. Additionally, the teachers recognize that student engagement is a symptom displayed by individuals, but the roots of engagement lay elsewhere. The teachers also described a wide range of strategies to enhance their students' engagement that focused primarily on the student, the teacher and the classroom through improving student-teacher relationships, incorporating out-of-school issues in the curriculum and the classroom, and having teachers show engagement with educational material. We conclude by outlining several implications for practice and policy and by calling for more research on the origins, development and consequences of teachers’ conceptions of student engagement.Alors que l’engagement des élèves joue un rôle central dans le processus éducatif, en définir le sens représente un défi. Cette étude porte sur les conceptions qu’ont les enseignants des dimensions sociales et culturelles de l’engagement des élèves dans trois écoles peu performantes situées dans des régions urbaines à faible statut socioéconomique. Seize enseignants et administrateurs de trois écoles ont participé à des discussions thématiques de groupe pour partager ce qu’ils entendaient par « engagement des élèves », les indicateurs de celui-ci, les facteurs qui l’influençaient et les moyens de le faciliter. Les résultats indiquent que les conceptions qu’ont les enseignants de l’engagement des élèves ont des répercussions profondes sur leur façon d’aborder leur travail. De plus, les enseignants reconnaissent que l’engagement des élèves est un symptôme que manifeste une personne, mais que les racines en sont ailleurs. Les enseignants ont décrit une vaste gamme de stratégies qui visent l’augmentation de l’engagement des élèves, qui sont axées surtout sur l’élève, l’enseignant et la salle de classe, et qui reposent sur l’amélioration du rapport enseignant-élève, l’intégration d’enjeux externes dans le programme d’études et une manifestation d’engagement de la part des enseignants avec la matière à l’étude. Nous concluons en présentant les grandes lignes des incidences de cette étude sur la pratique et la politique, et en réclamant davantage de recherche sur les origines, le développement et les conséquences des conceptions qu’ont les enseignants de l’engagement des élèves.

School and community engaged education (S.C.E.E.): Final Report

Through the project, participating teachers and administrators focused on seven areas: • Learning inclusive education practices for school effectiveness; • Adopting strategies for infusing culturally responsive and relevant pedagogy into the Ontario curriculum; • Linking inclusive practice to assessment and evaluation; • Initiating discussions of difference: teacher understanding of students within socio-educational discourse and the impact on learning; • Engaging parents and community as a part of inclusive practice; • Examining identity and culture; and, • Understanding the profile of the school-community, the learners and families within it, including such methods as community walks.Situated within a collaborative approach for supporting schools, the School and Community Engaged Education (SCEE) project was a three-year university/school board partnership (2008-2011, culminating in the TDSB/YCEC 2012 Summer Institute), created to examine ways of co-developing more inclusive forms of curriculum that are appropriate for students’ diverse needs, considerate of their cultural experiences, and supportive of their aspirations. Recognizing the critical links between inclusive and equitable teaching and learning scenarios, and student achievement and engagement, the project was an opportunity for five “high–needs” schools (Barrett, Ford & James, 2010) in the Toronto District School Board to examine ways that schools can integrate the histories, cultures, experiences and contributions of all students, thereby improving marginalized students’ participation and achievement.Toronto District School Boar

Participants, texts, and processes in second language writing assessment: A narrative review of the literature.

Essay tests are widely used to assess ESL/EFL learners' writing abilities for instructional, administrative, and research purposes. Relevant literature was searched to identify 70 empirical studies on ESL/EFL essay tests. The majority of these studies examined task, essay, and rater effects on essay rating and scores. Less attention has been given to the effects of of examinee factors, scoring methods, and assessment contexts. This absence seems mainly to be the result of a traditional concern with controlling for task and rater variability as 'sources of measurement error'. This article argues for viewing these factors as 'sources of variability' that contribute to the richness and uniqueness of the contexts within which writing performance and assessment occur and for taking them into account when interpreting and using essay test scores. The paper concludes with several implications for research and practice

Revision in Second Language Writing: What Teachers Need to Know

This article reviews theories and research on revision in second-language (L2) writing. It examines how and what L2 writers revise, compares the revision practices of skilled and unskilled L2 writers, and suggests instructional practices to help learners improve their L2 revision skills

Rating scale impact on EFL essay marking: A mixed-method study

Educators often have to choose among different types of rating scales to assess second-language (L2) writing performance. There is little research, however, on how different rating scales affect rater performance. This study employed a mixed-method approach to investigate the effects of two different rating scales on EFL essay scores, rating processes, and raters’ perceptions. Four EFL teachers in Tunisia rated a set of 24 EFL essays silently and two subsets of four essays while thinking aloud using a holistic scale and then a multiple-trait rating scale. The essay scores were analyzed using G-theory while the think-aloud protocols were coded in terms of Cuming, Kantor, and Power's (Cumming, A., Kantor, R., & Powers, D. (2002). Decision making while rating ESL/EFL writing tasks: A descriptive framework. Modern Language Journal, 86 (1), 67–96.) rater decision-making scheme. The holistic scale resulted in higher inter-rater agreement. Raters employed similar processes with both rating scales. Raters were the main source of variability in terms of scores and decision-making behavior. These findings have implications for writing assessment practices and for further research

Modeling Migration of Mobile Agents

In Modeling Multi agent systems (MAS), the mobility of agent is a basic issue to express interactions of flow actions, consequently, modelling migration process is a crucial issue. In this paper, we integrate the Ferber and Müller?s Influence/Reaction model in Agent Petri Nets (APN) to model migration mobile agents. This model clarifies the migration process of agent from an environment to another and enhances its capacity for formal verification

Method for Verification of a Multi Agents System

In this paper, we present a new formal Method for the Verification of a Multi agents Systems (MAS). We explain and applied a new method based on agents called Agents Petri Nets (APN). Our model describes each entity to model the system and verify the state of the agent and its behavior. This method use, mainly, the property of Petri Nets as deadline, state home, conflict, etc.. Therefore we use a formalism having a mathematical definition in order to verify some property of the interactive systems. To validate our contribution, we will deal with real example of a Multi agents System