Dear Ciara,

I think a lot of people have different strategies for motivation and engagement. In fact, most of studies regard classroom participation/engagement as an imperative.

Perhaps we should also be critical about it--the dogma of classroom participation leads to better learning.

Here is an intriguing non-mainstream view in HE sector:

Macfarlane, B. (2014). Student performativity in higher education: converting learning as a private space into a public performance. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-13. doi:10.1080/07294360.2014.956697

Dear Ciara,

I think a lot of people have different strategies for motivation and engagement. In fact, most of studies regard classroom participation/engagement as an imperative.

Perhaps we should also be critical about it--the dogma of classroom participation leads to better learning.

Here is an intriguing non-mainstream view in HE sector:

Macfarlane, B. (2014). Student performativity in higher education: converting learning as a private space into a public performance. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-13. doi:10.1080/07294360.2014.956697

If you haven't already, perhaps have a good look at the handbook of research on student engagement (http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-2018-7) as a starting point, and then look further into areas that are relevant to your place of inquiry (I also think you may need to refine your question a little bit further). You might consider the difference between social engagement and academic engagement, and controveries in defining what it means to "perform well."

Heartiest thanks to Mr. Harshvardhan Singh for his nice answer. Liked your writing.

Engagement is crucial to learning and retaining information.  How students become engaged differs from person to person and subject to subject . . . and instructor to instructor.  Others have cited some references to look at.  I would suggest some tactics and pedagogical strategies.  Have you looked at role immersion opportunities? I was one of those who thought there wasn't enough time in the class to teach what should be taught, and therefore poo-poohed role immersion.  Then I observed it done in some classes and noticed that the students were performing (almost every student) far beyond the course level, and enjoying themselves.  I researched into a particular format - Reacting To The Past - RTTP - out of Barnard College, NY) and was impressed with the level of academic challenge, writing, speaking, thinking, collaborating, negotiating, team-building, etc.  I love the interdisciplinary nature of the options, as well, and the flexibility of the different learning opportunities. I also love the training opportunities for faculty to learn and share with their peers as they adopt these strategies.

Another approach that I suggest is to experiment with a variety of technologies that pull students in to the learning experience.  There isn't any one that works above all others (though I have a favorite).  I personally believe that these technologies work for the following reasons: 1) they are based in technology that the students are familiar with and enjoy; 2) they offer anonymity for answering in case the student doesn't get the answer quite right . . . but if you use a good version correctly, offers opportunity to laud student answers from students who otherwise wouldn't "speak" up and wouldn't get confirmation of their answers; and 3) because they are novel.  This latter reason is why I don't think there is a particular style of technology that is the answer to student engagement.  Students enjoy trying new things, as long as they are easily adopted and as long as the technologies used clearly support the learning in the classroom.  I use LectureTools (part of the Echo360 ALP platform) to engage the students in my lectures through interactive slides.  I use iPads with iAnnotate to engage the students in peer editing on writing projects.  FlipQuizMe (free web ware) is a great fun tool for a quick review that students of all ages enjoy and even the quite ones get involved in answering the questions (on a Jeopardy format). Allowing students to use their smart phones to search for answers online in the middle of class is very useful.  I've stopped providing all the definitions the students ask for - I have them look it up, put it in their own words and share it with the class.  Using WordPress and CLIO and other webware for students to present their research work through - while gaining research and technology skills - is also very productive and engaging.  I just had a faculty member share yesterday that he didn't think the CLIO would work with a class he had, full of students who just wouldn't engage.  Much to his surprise they jumped in on this particular experiment and have finally fully engaged in the class.

I hope these suggestions help.  I concur with the posts of others.  The personal, individual touch is very important for quiet students.  But it is also important to help all students realize that success in their professional lives will depend on them being able to step outside of their insecurities.  The role immersion strategy is very useful in this aspect.  The technology helps engage the students on their own grounds - without requiring them to interact excessively with others.

Definitivamente se trata de alumnos en situación de riesgo. Es común que el alumno que no participa en clase presente problemas de salud, de autoestima o socioemocionales. Esto le dificulta el aprendizaje. Pero no sólo tiene que ver con bajo rendimiento escolar, sino que es más preocupante su deficiente desarrollo en las habilidades para relacionarse con los demás, habilidades que serán muy importantes en la vida adulta.

I agree with Flavio that we need to take into account its impact outside classroom and not only impact on academic performance

I agree with all the responses. In addition to all, I believe that  you cannot know what or how to engage these children without first understanding why they are not engaged.The why stage will help you address the what and there could be a whole range of reasons. For example; simple lack of motivation, learning styles, personality, etc. We all engage better with something if we anticipate a value, a future or immediate value. Also having an  agentic involvement , interest based and child‐influenced outcomes approach to your teaching may help. And do not be afraid to engage the expertise of others to help out.

Here are some strategies that have worked for me.

Learning about the child's temperament traits and how these traits affect their behavior and reactions

Managing their behaviors by working with the challenging traits, modifying the environment,

Listening to them, providing that one on onetime, 

Giving children appropriate feedback about  about their actions, lots of motivation

Attached please find papers on collaborative and networked learning:

Try to find out what that child is realty interested in.. - basketball,  dogs,horses,  jazz. ,  types of sneaker...whatever!  Whatever  the child's special  passion, once you have discovered this, then  build on that  to engage the child. Have  a student write all about a special  trip or a special  recipe  that grandma made, or what  the child found while walking in a field.   - as long as the topic is important to the child,   Then that child may well want to open op and  or write about   or make a poster for, or make up a song about  that topic..for the teacher. and then , maybe, also for classmates. But first unlock the child's  own curiosity or interests . Once a child ,who was reticent, opened up because she  was wiling to share about how she  she fell out of the top bunk bed  and got hurt when she first went to overnight camp. Teacher attentive interest in hearing that personal story helped the child   trust the adult's genu8inhe caring  and personal interest , and then helped the child open up more.later on..

I suggest you to take into account some ideas:

teacher education is only a component, some times a very little one in what a teacher is and does as a professional in his or her classrooms every day.

pupils, the easy and the hard, are human subjects as their theachers are, so, I am not clear if in your question 'engage' means 'rule' them costs that costs. They also make some sense to be there doing what, and perhaps they are also trying to master the situations according to their (second-class) living projects.

relationship between a teacher and a pupil is always a complex one, because it is affective, it involves power and submission, and differents views on rapport au savoir, schooling, always in a particular on-time situation. I think that generalisations are not helpful here, but on the contrary they make things indeed blurry.

Clinical approach is a very poweful tool to understand educative situations.

I feel that some introvert students are deep thinker and many times they do great in music ,art and writing poetry.First of all we have to check the interest of students .A teacher should  have to  identify their talent and give them personal attention.One to one interaction plays a important role for their betterment..A teacher has to be mentor for them.Sometimes extrovert students overpower during class room discussions so make the  group of introvert and extrovert but [Do not level them introvert or extrovert ]

Design a game in that manner that  extrovert will listen and introvert will speak .In this way introvert students will get  chance to speak and extrovert students listening skills will be improved.In that game extroverts students will not get marks if they speak and introverts students will get no marks if they do not speak.Discussion  can be done in any theme as per the  interest of the students.

Maybe, this is their learning style, part of the persona. This should not be interpreted as non-involvement, but rather a personal learning style.

Some of my students are rather talkative and sometimes talk out of turn thus overriding/dominating  the reticent ones who may have something to say but are not outspoken enough to interrupt the loquacious speaker on the pulpit.

One way of dealing with this is to have students write a learning journal in which they can voice their ideas. This works for me and it will surprise you to see how much these reticent students have to say!!!!

Believe me, this works!!!!

Dear Ciara, thank you for your question.

We tried using a variety of web based technologies and learning theories to engage individuals who were seen as 'invisible and quiet'. As Jae mentioned above we all have different strategies for motivation and engagement, but hope the link below might help you out. We did use using Social Media, Self-regulated learning and Heutagogy to steer the diverse type of learners to engage into the learning experience.

https://www.academia.edu/12506372/Proceedings_of_the_HEA_STEM_Computing_Learning_Technologies_2014_Workshop

Many kind regards,

Rob.

If your school is a Google school and teachers and students have google accounts, you can add the dimension of the comment and/or chat feature embedded in Google docs.  I often find that students who will not raise their hand in class or go to the "board" will often jump in with a pointed comment or question within a google doc.

I have used this successfully with middle schoolers, some as young as 12.  It is a particularly useful strategy to use with my mainstreamed spec ed students who come with an aide, but are embarrassed to have the aide explain things to them outloud in class.

In the higher ed environment, something similar can be accomplished via discussion forums within an LMS.

Heidi