Why Engagement Matters
I know school Heads aren’t supposed to post things like this, but I found this very interesting.
A friend sent me the link to a recently released paper by biomedical engineering researchers at MIT that tested a device for electrodermal activity. This activity is a change in the electrical properties of the skin in response to one’s surroundings. One reviewer of the paper reminded his readers that this type of test “does not measure brain activity like an EEG would,” rather it is “based on skin conductance” and is a signature of physiological or mental arousal.
Authors of the paper put this device on a student and measured this person’s electrodermal response during a variety of activities over the course of a week. Noting the graph below, the student’s sympathetic nervous system stays active during labs, homework, and even the period preceding sleep. The activity goes flat during class.
It is just one person – so the sample is obviously small, and the study was intended to test the device, not compare one activity to another. However, the fact that this measures a student’s sympathetic nervous system showing little arousal during class should get our attention.
These types of findings always require further study, but I take it as a graphic depiction of why having “active” classrooms in which students are engaged in learning activities can be a very good thing. These same MIT researchers studied other activities and found that electrodermal activity increases when subjects are asked to complete “stressor” tasks, such as a mental arithmetic test, a world-color matching task, and even watching a horror movie. Each of these showed a steep rise in electrodermal activity, followed by a plateau.
When I walk around classrooms at CA from the lower grades through the upper school, I see lots of movement, interactive tasks and student engagement. Some teachers here at CA are even “flipping” their classrooms –which means that lectures or lessons on the course website are completed as homework, and class time is spent individually or in small groups working on labs and other hands-on learning activities under the supervision of the teacher.
I know from my experience that a great teacher can engage students in discussions, and they can be extremely stimulating. The key to transformational teaching is to engage and involve students in meaningful activities and often ones that represent real-world decision-making. What we don’t want is to see a student’s interest “flatline.”
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