Lindsay Warwick offers four ways to persuade students to make use of an online learning platform. Lindsay Warwick is a teacher and trainer at Bell and a materials writer. She is co-author of the forthcoming Milestones in English A2 and B1+ Student’s Books, publishing in January 2016.

Many English coursebooks come with access to an online learning platform full of material to help learners develop their language skills further. These can be particularly beneficial for academic English learners who need to achieve a certain level of English within a limited time period. But I wonder how many students (and teachers) fully exploit these materials.

For me, the greatest benefit of education technology is that it provides learners with the opportunity to extend learning beyond the classroom, work at their own pace and at a level appropriate to them. Online learning platforms allow all of those things as well as provide a tool for students and teachers to keep a record of progress made. Essentially, they allow learners to have more ownership of their learning which helps them learn better. According to Benson (2011), “controlling one’s own learning processes is an essential part of effective learning”.

However, encouraging students to use such a resource is not always easy as some students overlook the value of it. I’d therefore like to suggest four ways to help those students appreciate this value better and encourage them to fully exploit the resource.

Persuade the teacher, persuade the student

I believe that before students can be convinced, their teacher needs to be convinced. Once the teacher sees the benefits, they can encourage students to do the same. One possibility is to explore the platform as a class together. Students can familiarise themselves with the platform, with their own learning goals in mind. As Dudeney and Hockly (2007) say, when using educational technology “Your learners’ needs, likes and learning goals need to be taken into account”. By getting students to critically analyse the platform, the benefits will be more apparent to them. The class can also discuss limitations and how those limitations can be dealt with.

Make connections

Research suggests that better outcomes are achieved when online learning and face-to-face learning happen together (Vega, 2013) and linking the two in some way adds more importance to the online platform. Learners will be better encouraged to do online tasks if they have to bring some kind of feedback on the tasks to class e.g. their view on something said in a recording or two new words they learnt. With speaking tasks, the online material could help students prepare for the actual speaking task done in class, rather than recording it at home and emailing it to the teacher. And students could be asked to peer correct each other’s writing work in class.

Set regular deadlines

Some teachers link online material to the course through assessment, making completion of online tasks compulsory. While this can motivate students to do tasks, it can also result in students leaving all the tasks until the very last minute to satisfy course requirements. This means students neither use the online tasks to develop their skills throughout the year nor use the results of the tasks to help inform future learning. As a result, teachers may want to set regular deadlines on the platform.

Give students choice

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, asking students to make choices about their learning helps them to develop autonomy. “For learners to become more autonomous they must recognize their own preferred ways of learning, and students have to make conscious decisions about what works for them” (Painter, 2004). By giving students the opportunity to choose which material to study and when, they can feel more motivated to do the tasks and learn more about their learning preferences. For some students, however, too much choice can be overwhelming and so a choice of two or three sets of tasks each time may be a good place to start.

To sum up, online learning platforms offer much potential and the above suggestions can help learners to see this potential. There will always be students who choose not to participate but this is also part of being autonomous. There will also always be students who will exploit the material and learn from it with encouragement from the teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y32NgrbPuI 

English Attack!

The English Attack! Entertainment English Blog explains and discusses various approaches for improving effectiveness in teaching English to EFL and ESL learners, in particular teens and young adults.

The Blog covers aspects of teaching and learning based on principles of cognitive neuroscience or so-called "brain-based learning"; provides explanation of the pedagogical approaches used in the English Attack! online learning resource for consumers, schools and organizations; and gives the author's thoughts and impressions about industry events, IATEFL and TESOL conferences, and general trends in the industry.

English Attack! was selected as one of the finalists in the 2010 PLUGG pan-European competition for technology start-ups, and in the same years was a finalist in the Tech Crunch Paris, Seedcamp Paris (voted among the top five start-ups) and pan-European The Next Web start-up events.

Classrooms across the United States are becoming increasingly diverse with increasing numbers of students whose primary home languages are not English. State-reported data in 2008-09 estimated 10 percent of the US school-aged population (PreK-twelfth grade) as students identified as limited English proficient. Terms more widely accepted and used are English-Language Learners or simply English Learners (ELs).

To adequately assist ELs in learning both content concepts and English simultaneously, all educators need to view themselves as language teachers. Here are 10 tips for supporting ELs in general education classrooms.

1. Know your students
Increase your understanding of who your students are, their backgrounds and educational experiences. If your students have been in US schools for several years and/or were educated in their country of origin, are literate or not in their native language, may provide you with a better understanding of their educational needs and ways to support them.

2. Be aware of their social and emotional needs
Understanding more about the students' families and their needs is key. When ELs have siblings to care for afterschool, possibly live with extended family members or have jobs to help support their families, completing homework assignments will not take priority.

3. Increase your understanding of first and second language acquisition
Although courses about second language acquisition are not required as part of teacher education programs, understanding the theories about language acquisition and the variables that contribute to language learning may help you reach your ELs more effectively.

4. Student need to SWRL every day in every class
The domains of language acquisition, Speaking, Writing, Reading and Listening need to be equally exercised across content areas daily. Assuring that students are using all domains of language acquisition to support their English language development is essential.

5. Increase your understanding of English language proficiency
Social English language proficiency and academic English language proficiency are very different. A student may be more proficient in one vs. the other. A student's level of academic English may be masked by a higher level of Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) compared to their Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). For example, a student may be able to orally recall the main events from their favorite movie but struggle to recall the main events that led up to the Civil War.

6. Know the language of your content
English has a number of polysemous words. Once a student learns and understands one meaning of a word, other meaning may not be apparent. Review the vocabulary of your content area often and check in with ELs to assure they know the words and possibly the multiple meanings associated with the words. For example, a "plot" of land in geography class versus the "plot" in a literature class. A "table" we sit at versus a multiplication "table."

7. Understand language assessments
Language proficiency assessments in your district may vary. Find out when and how a student's English language proficiency is assessed and the results of those assessments. Using the results of formal and informal assessments can provide a wealth of information to aid in planning lessons that support language acquisition and content knowledge simultaneously.

8. Use authentic visuals and manipulatives
These can be over- or under-utilized. Implement the use of authentic resources for example; menus, bus schedules, post-cards, photographs and video clips can enhance student comprehension of complex content concepts.

9. Strategies that match language proficiency
Knowing the level of English language proficiency at which your students are functioning academically is vital in order to be able to scaffold appropriately. Not all strategies are appropriate for all levels of language learners. Knowing which scaffolds are most appropriate takes time but will support language learning more effectively.

10. Collaborate to celebrate
Seek support from other teachers who may teach ELs. Other educators, novice and veteran, may have suggestions and resources that support English language development and content concepts. Creating and sustaining professional learning communities that support ELs are vital for student success.

Suggested resources
Hadaway, N., Vardell, S., Young, T. What Every Teacher Should Know About English-Language Learners (Pearson Education, Inc. Boston, MA 2009)

Haynes, J. Getting Started with English-Language Learners: How Educators Can Meet the Challenge (ASCD, Alexandria, VA 2007)

Hill, J., Flynn, K. Classroom Instruction that Works with English-Language Learners (ASCD, Alexandria, VA 2006)

When we think of student engagement in learning activities, it is often convenient to understand engagement with an activity as being represented by good behavior (i.e. behavioral engagement), positive feelings (i.e. emotional engagement), and, above all, student thinking (i.e. cognitive engagement) (Fredricks, 2014). This is because students may be behaviorally and/or emotionally invested in a given activity without actually exerting the necessary mental effort to understand and master the knowledge, craft, or skill that the activity promotes.

In light of this, research suggests that considering the following interrelated elements when designing and implementing learning activities may help increase student engagement behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively, thereby positively affecting student learning and achievement.

1. Make It Meaningful
In aiming for full engagement, it is essential that students perceive activities as being meaningful. Research has shown that if students do not consider a learning activity worthy of their time and effort, they might not engage in a satisfactory way, or may even disengage entirely in response (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). To ensure that activities are personally meaningful, we can, for example, connect them with students' previous knowledge and experiences, highlighting the value of an assigned activity in personally relevant ways. Also, adult or expert modeling can help to demonstrate why an individual activity is worth pursuing, and when and how it is used in real life.

2. Foster a Sense of Competence
The notion of competence may be understood as a student's ongoing personal evaluation of whether he or she can succeed in a learning activity or challenge. (Can I do this?) Researchers have found that effectively performing an activity can positively impact subsequent engagement (Schunk & Mullen, 2012). To strengthen students' sense of competence in learning activities, the assigned activities could:

Be only slightly beyond students' current levels of proficiency
Make students demonstrate understanding throughout the activity
Show peer coping models (i.e. students who struggle but eventually succeed at the activity) and peer mastery models (i.e. students who try and succeed at the activity)
Include feedback that helps students to make progress
3. Provide Autonomy Support
We may understand autonomy support as nurturing the students' sense of control over their behaviors and goals. When teachers relinquish control (without losing power) to the students, rather than promoting compliance with directives and commands, student engagement levels are likely to increase as a result (Reeve, Jang, Carrell, Jeon, & Barch, 2004). Autonomy support can be implemented by:

Welcoming students' opinions and ideas into the flow of the activity
Using informational, non-controlling language with students
Giving students the time they need to understand and absorb an activity by themselves
4. Embrace Collaborative Learning
Collaborative learning is another powerful facilitator of engagement in learning activities. When students work effectively with others, their engagement may be amplified as a result (Wentzel, 2009), mostly due to experiencing a sense of connection to others during the activities (Deci & Ryan, 2000). To make group work more productive, strategies can be implemented to ensure that students know how to communicate and behave in that setting. Teacher modeling is one effective method (i.e. the teacher shows how collaboration is done), while avoiding homogeneous groups and grouping by ability, fostering individual accountability by assigning different roles, and evaluating both the student and the group performance also support collaborative learning.

5. Establish Positive Teacher-Student Relationships
High-quality teacher-student relationships are another critical factor in determining student engagement, especially in the case of difficult students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (Fredricks, 2014). When students form close and caring relationships with their teachers, they are fulfilling their developmental need for a connection with others and a sense of belonging in society (Scales, 1991). Teacher-student relationships can be facilitated by:

Caring about students' social and emotional needs
Displaying positive attitudes and enthusiasm
Increasing one-on-one time with students
Treating students fairly
Avoiding deception or promise-breaking
6. Promote Mastery Orientations
Finally, students' perspective of learning activities also determines their level of engagement. When students pursue an activity because they want to learn and understand (i.e. mastery orientations), rather than merely obtain a good grade, look smart, please their parents, or outperform peers (i.e. performance orientations), their engagement is more likely to be full and thorough (Anderman & Patrick, 2012). To encourage this mastery orientation mindset, consider various approaches, such as framing success in terms of learning (e.g. criterion-referenced) rather than performing (e.g. obtaining a good grade). You can also place the emphasis on individual progress by reducing social comparison (e.g. making grades private) and recognizing student improvement and effort.

Do you generally consider any of the above facilitators of engagement when designing and implementing learning activities? If so, which ones? If not, which are new to you?

Research
Ames, C. (1992). Achievement goals and the classroom motivational climate. In D. Schunk & J. Meece (Eds.), Student perceptions in the classroom (pp. 327-348). Hillsdale, N.J: L. Erlbaum.
Anderman, E. M., & Patrick, H. (2012). Achievement goal theory, conceptualization of ability/intelligence, and classroom climate. In S. Christenson, A. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Student Engagement (pp. 173-191). New York, NY: Springer.
Assor, A., Kaplan, H., & Roth, G. (2002). Choice is good, but relevance is excellent: Autonomy-enhancing and suppressing teacher behaviours predicting students' engagement in schoolwork. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72(2), 261-278.
Baker, J. A., Grant, S., & Morlock, L. (2008). The teacher-student relationship as a developmental context for children with internalizing or externalizing behavior problems. School Psychology Quarterly, 23(1), 3-15.
Bandura, A., & Schunk, D. H. (1981). Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(3), 586-598.
Belland, B. R., Kim, C., & Hannafin, M. J. (2013). A framework for designing scaffolds that improve motivation and cognition. Educational Psychologist, 48(4), 243-270.
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., & Marshall, B. (2003). Assessment for learning: Putting it into practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.
Driscoll, K. C., & Pianta, R. C. (2010). Banking time in head start: Early efficacy of an intervention designed to promote supportive teacher-child relationships. Early Education and Development, 21(1), 38-64.
Fredricks, J. A. (2014). Eight Myths of Student Disengagement: Creating Classrooms of Deep Learning. Los Angeles: Corwin.
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59-109.
Gillies, R. M., & Ashman, A. F. (1998). Behavior and interactions of children in cooperative groups in lower and middle elementary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(4), 746-757.
Gregory, A., & Weinstein, R. S. (2004). Connection and regulation at home and in school: Predicting growth in achievement for adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 19(4), 405-427.
Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Holubec, E. (1994). The new circles of learning: Cooperation in the classroom and school. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Kidd, C., Palmeri, H., & Aslin, R. N. (2013). Rational snacking: Young children's decision making on the marshmallow task is moderated by beliefs about environmental reliability. Cognition, 126(1), 109-114.
Linnenbrink, E. A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). The role of self-efficacy beliefs in student engagement and learning in the classroom. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19(2), 119-137.
Middleton, M. J., & Midgley, C. (2002). Beyond motivation: Middle school students' perceptions of press for understanding in math. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27(3), 373-391.
Newmann, F., Wehlage, G., & Lamborn, D. (1992). The significance and sources of student engagement. In Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools (pp. 11-39). ERIC.
Noels, K. A., Clement, R., & Pelletier, L. G. (1999). Perceptions of teachers' communicative style and students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The Modern Language Journal, 83(1), 23-34.
Peter, F., & Dalbert, C. (2010). Do my teachers treat me justly? Implications of students' justice experience for class climate experience. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 35(4), 297-305.
Reeve, J. (1998). Autonomy support as an interpersonal motivating style: Is it teachable? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 23(3), 312-330.
Reeve, J., & Jang, H. (2006). What teachers say and do to support students' autonomy during a learning activity. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 209-218.
Reeve, J., Jang, H., Carrell, D., Jeon, S., & Barch, J. (2004). Enhancing students' engagement by increasing teachers' autonomy support. Motivation and Emotion, 28(2), 147-169.
Scales, P. C. (1991). Creating a developmental framework: The positive possibilities of young adolescents. In A portrait of young adolescents in the 1990s: Implications for promoting healthy growth and development. ERIC.
Schunk, D., & Swartz, C. (1993). Goals and progress feedback: Effects on self-efficacy and writing achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 18, 337-354.
Schunk, D. H., & Mullen, C. A. (2012). Self-Efficacy as an engaged learner. In S. Christenson, A. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student engagement (pp. 219-235). Boston, MA: Springer US.
Schunk, D. H. (2003). Self-efficacy for reading and writing: influence of modeling, goal setting, and self-evaluation. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19(2), 159–172.
Shernoff, D. J., Csikszentmihalyi, M., Shneider, B., & Shernoff, E. S. (2003). Student engagement in high school classrooms from the perspective of flow theory. School Psychology Quarterly, 18(2), 158-176.
Slavin, R. E. (1996). Cooperative learning in middle and secondary schools. The Clearing House, 69(4), 200-204.
Turner, J. C., Midgley, C., Meyer, D. K., Gheen, M., Anderman, E. M., Kang, Y., & Patrick, H. (2002). The classroom environment and students' reports of avoidance strategies in mathematics: A multimethod study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(1), 88-106.
Tyler, J. M., Feldman, R. S., & Reichert, A. (2006). The price of deceptive behavior: Disliking and lying to people who lie to us. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42(1), 69-77.
Webb, N. M., Nemer, K. M., & Ing, M. (2009). Small-Group reflections: Parallels between teacher discourse and student behavior in peer-directed groups. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), 63–119.
Wentzel, K. R. (2009). Peers and academic functioning at school. In K. Rubin, W. Bukowski, & B. Laursen (Eds.), Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups. Social, emotional, and personality development in context (pp. 531-547). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don't students like school?: A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Many times teachers, parents, and administrators refer to students as "digital natives" and simply assume they know how to do everything when it comes to technology. While they may be tech savvy and fearless about adopting and exploring new technologies, I find that they too can benefit from strategic professional development.

When I started my first year as an educational technologist for Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, I had the pleasure of working with a phenomenal Latin teacher, Natalie Cannon, on a long-term class project. Though this was a project that she had done for years, we met to see how the iPad and specific apps could elevate student content and delivery. My role in what I came to call student professional development ultimately fell into two categories from there.

1. Discover and Model the Apps
While students are typically familiar with apps like iMovie and Keynote, many times these tools do not provide a wide or deep enough palette to show what they know. As Natalie's Latin project was multifaceted, differentiated, and truly allowed students choice and voice, we felt that we needed to cast a wider net to include the tools that students could utilize. Based on the types of project choices that Natalie offered (e.g. illustrated directions, advertisements, and models), I chose four additional tools to model with students:

Tackk
Thinglink
Snapguide
Shadow Puppet EDU
Not only were these added to the project requirements handout that we delivered to students, but I also modeled each tool and discussed how some worked better with one project choice over another. These apps also offered a wide range of media that could be included in each one, ranging from links and text to photos and videos, and even embedded multimedia.

Laura Moore says it best: "Students, when given choice and freedom to explore, will create products beyond teacher expectations."

Because students were provided with additional modeled tools to choose from, they were able to really let their creativity and imagination soar.

One such student, Reagan Kowert, created a multifaceted project that blended both analog and digital media. As she described it:

I created an actor's suitcase, complete with travel stickers, that I imagined passed through time with the masks to house the props, pantomime performance, Tackk, and my paper. Through Tackk, I was able to blend the media, quickly allowing my audience to actually see my research, props, and a facsimile of ancient Roman dance.
View Reagan's project and video on Tackk.

Giving students tools that published to a URL, which allowed them to share the material with their classmates before their presentation, also had an unexpected curricular benefit. Natalie Cannon explains:

This is the only time I have ever had students explore deeper into someone else's research like they have been doing. They are clicking through the links and reading the websites, they are watching the long videos that they only previewed in class due to time limits, and they are all really looking at the pictures/art/ examples that students are including.
2. Model the Delivery and Workflow

Photo credit: Lisa Johnson
While students were delighted with the ability to choose apps and share their work with fellow classmates, we did find that there was still some learning to be had. Some students presented a brochure in Pages and wondered why the text boxes were jumping around and why they couldn't zoom in on the photos. I told them, "You wouldn't turn in a trifold poster with images and text that weren't glued down. And that this is essentially the same thing as a Pages document that hasn't been glued down to be a PDF." Once I explained it in those terms, students seemed to make the connection.

Other students tried to turn in an iMovie project file rather than the video file. I again used an analogy: "You wouldn't give someone a birthday cake as a box of cake mix and a can of icing. Essentially, turning in a project file is the same thing. It's not a final product, it's all of the pieces -- photos, audio, transitions -- that make up the video, but that's not the final video." I think part of this divide happens as our students transition from analog to digital and navigate the murky waters of workflow.

Ultimately, when students are offered a variety of choices with apps and projects, we have to be cognizant of how we prepare them to deliver and submit this content. We need to provide time before the project due date to navigate and evaluate this workflow and delivery with students so they can all be successful.

How do you ensure your students' professional development? Please share in the comments below.