Northwest Education | Spring/Summer 2008
Student Engagement Takes Center Stage
Improving Achievement Through Student Engagement: A Conversation With Greg Williamson
OLYMPIA, Washington— Ask Greg Williamson about student engagement, and you feel as if you've unleashed a tornado. Research studies, school examples, and policy issues come roaring at you at hyper-speed. Williamson headed the Office of Student Engagement in Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) from 2005 to -2007. Although the office lost its funding after a two-year run, its legacy lives on in student engagement initiatives throughout OSPI and through other state organizations. Williamson remains passionate about the subject, and keeps his finger on the pulse of student engagement activities in the state. During a lunch break from his current job as supervisor of OSPI's Children of Incarcerated Parents Support Program, Williamson talked about the role of student engagement in improving learning.
Q: What role can student engagement play in school improvement under No Child Left Behind?
The implications are huge, and the interventions are usually pretty basic. Our work with the students has been driven by meeting the system where it is, and using the change vehicles that the school can support naturally.
One example of how student engagement impacts this area is McKnight Middle School in Renton, Washington, where a student team helps staff and administrators meet federal accountability goals. [The team] created a "climate and culture" rubric and goes into classrooms to teach other students about trust and mutual respect.
In Renton, it was the School Improvement Planning process, and working with staff to assign one of the school's three goals to the youth-adult partnership model. The School Improvement Planning Guide that all Washington schools use contains information about how to engage students, and this section of the guide was written with students in a work-site education program inside our state education agency.
Another example is that Anne Miller-Hawkins' students understand the specific learning targets for which they are accountable under NCLB. They know the Grade grade-Level level Expectations expectations (GLEs), and can always tell you what they are learning, why it matters, and how they can use it. She says she's even heard them use the learning standards appropriately in jokes with their friends. Because [creating the rubric] wasn't enough for them, they also presented engagement strategies to a group of higher education faculty supervising teacher preparation programs, as a way to infuse the "student-as-learning-partner" philosophy in programs preparing teachers who go out across Washington state.
Even a simple thing—such as like how a parents might talk to theirher student when the state assessment results come in the mail—can be a vehicle for student engagement. At OSPI we asked students to write a guide for this conversation, and to help redesign the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) report card so students could explain it in their own language. All of these examples, and many more, become clear once we begin seeing students as partners, as resources, and as people who are learning "on the job." The results are useful products that help schools meet their improvement targets while helping students make "what we are asking you to learn" relevant to their lives. Students can find a way to connect to their own strengths—especially if they don't think they have any—and teach one important thing to one other person. The feeling of success that comes from that is irrepressible.
Given all the different ways student engagement can play out, are there common characteristics that tie these activities together?
In each case, the adults ask students for suggestions and then put at least some steps (that really matter) into action. When the first action is taken, that is where the conversation begins in the minds of the students when the first action is taken (a resource here is Adam Fletcher's Cycle of Youth Voice and Action). Once the students—from as diverse a range of the school's population as possible—see that the adults are truly prepared to work with them to solve a real problem, they make a commitment. I have seen students show up at 7 a.m., and stay after school, and give up weekends to ride in vans with teachers to make a presentation to teachers or school board members on the other side of the state.
When it is successful, the adults also figure out a way to have students earn academic credit, or service service-learning hours, or meet culminating project requirements, so that the work is not additive, but engagement is integrated into student learning in the classroom. These efforts last. And where the adults haven't yet been able to integrate the work, the students end up doing their homework AND student engagement activities. The job of the adults then becomes to help students make good choices and set healthy boundaries.
Common characteristics [of different examples of student engagement include] challenges that matter; transparency of information to increase student understanding of the goals; products for real use by authentic audiences; meaningful response to student ideas; and educators who see themselves as learners. There are, of course, a bunch of other intangibles, but these are some big ones.
What's the biggest argument in favor of student engagement for principals or superintendents who might be on the fence?
The Student 2 Student program worked because of a strong partnership, driven by the Association of Washington School Principals, which also trains schools on how to do schoolwide improvement with the Raising Student Voice and Participation (RSVP) program. These programs are effective because administrators can weave them into their schools in ways that fit their needs best (for more info, go to: http://tinyurl.com/5rb9c4. When students are committed because they really care, it helps administrators and other adults working in schools, who have very hard jobs and don't get too many thanks.
I was fortunate enough to work in education policy for 18 legislative sessions at the state and federal levels (and I was lucky to work with students on engagement strategies as my "other job" during all those years). I am convinced that we adults do not have all the answers we need to help get each and every student learning to world-class standards with our current tools. A key principle of systems renewal and adaptive leadership is to "share the work with the whole system." For too long, the students have been the target of instructional methods, and haven't been invited into the process of creating relevant, commitment-inspiring, curiosity-fueled learning. The challenges are too hard for us to reach without asking the students to work with us in a different way, and it all starts with making the goals plain for students and helping them see how they connect to real- world skills.
Washington Superintendent Terry Bergeson, in her state of education address that launched Student 2 Student, said it this way: "When students understand the power and purpose of these skills in their individual lives, and when they see how important they are to our future economy and quality of life, they will engage in their education in a new way."
Perhaps students know some things about how they learn best, or can teach us some ways of engaging them, that will make our jobs easier and more enjoyable and meaningful. We get a lot done in today's schools, in spite of some students' "compliance-only" mind-set, and in spite of the traumatic challenges and life obstacles that many students face. When students can participate with adults in ways they can care about, and be involved and engaged, they can become committed to learning, and work with us instead of against us.
For more on student engagement in Washington, access go to http://www.k12.wa.us/students.aspx and click on "Resources for Students" at the top of the page. You can contact Greg Williamson at greg.williamson@k12.wa.us or 360-725-6251.See the McKnight Middle School Culture and Climate Rubric. [PDF File]