[mentalhealth-l] Engaging and Re-engaging Students in Learning at School

[SMHP]

September, 2008

From:   Howard Adelman & Linda Taylor
         Co-Directors of the Center at UCLA

Re:     New Center Guide for Practice –
         Engaging and Re-engaging Students in Learning at School


Attached is a report entitled:
         Engaging and Re-engaging Students in Learning at School
(Also online at 
http://www.smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/engagingandre-engagingstudents.pdf )

As the school year progresses, an increasing 
concern is not only on how to enhance engagement 
in learning, but how to re-engage those students 
who have become actively disengaged in classroom instruction.

Engagement is associated with positive academic 
outcomes, including achievement and persistence 
in school; and it is higher in classrooms with 
supportive teachers and peers, challenging and 
authentic tasks, opportunities for choice, and 
sufficient structure. Conversely, for many 
students, disengagement is associated with 
behavior problems, and behavior and learning 
problems may eventually lead to dropout. The 
degree of concern about student engagement varies 
depending on school population.

 From a psychological perspective, student 
disengagement is associated with situational 
threats to feelings of competence, 
self-determination, and/or relatedness to valued 
others. The demands may be from school staff, 
peers, instructional content and processes. 
Psychological disengagement may be internalized 
(e.g., boredom, emotional distress) and/or 
externalized (misbehavior, dropping out). 
Re-engagement depends on use of interventions 
that help minimize conditions that negatively 
affect intrinsic motivation and maximize 
conditions that have a positive intrinsic motivational effect.

In this guide, we briefly highlight the following 
matters because they are fundamental to the 
challenge of student (and staff) disengagement and re-engagement:

         · Disengaged students and social control
         · Intrinsic motivation
         · Two key components of motivation: valuing and expectations
         · Overreliance on extrinsics: a bad match
         · Focusing on intrinsic motivation to re-engage students

We hope you will forward this guide for practice 
to colleagues to stimulate widespread discussion 
about these important matters. We also invite you 
to indicate any other folks to whom you think we should send this.

And watch for our upcoming quarterly 
journal/newsletter which leads off with an 
article entitled: School Dropout Prevention: A 
Civil Rights and Public Health Imperative.

We look forward to continuing to work with you in 
the best interests of children, their families, neighborhoods, and schools.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>

School Mental Health Project/
Center for Mental Health in Schools
UCLA Dept. of Psychology
Los Angeles, CA  90095-1563
(310) 825-3634 / Toll Free: (866) 846-4843 / Fax: (310) 206-8716
Email: smhp at ucla.edu
Web: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/mentalhealth-l/attachments/20080910/6d3f8927/attachment-0001.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: engagingandre-engagingstudents.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 114172 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/mentalhealth-l/attachments/20080910/6d3f8927/attachment-0001.pdf