A Solution for Student Engagement

Solving the issue of wavering student engagement is no easy task. But it’s an important one. Consider this scenario. You ask a high school student – “What do you want to do after high school?” The answer?

“I don’t know.”

As students get closer to graduation, most of us likely ask that question out of simple curiosity, concern, or just a desire to draw them out and know about their exciting plans.

But for many students, what they want for the future is unclear. And that question – whether coming from a  well-intentioned friend, relative, or teacher – could just add to the anxiety and uncertainty.

Of course, it shouldn’t be expected that every 17 or 18-year-old will know exactly what they want to do. But a lack of engagement doesn’t help, and can have a variety of other negative consequences.

Could part of the issue be a lack of exposure to different ideas and career options, connection to the community, and examples of how to pursue a certain path? Really, helping students to see a world beyond high school, and connecting current learning to future plans?

A lack of engagement in school has many consequences. Students may act out, perform poorly, or simply not attend at all.

One of the underlying causes of chronic absenteeism, where students miss more that 10% of school days, is a lack of engagement and belonging, including a “lack of enriching opportunities.”

Students, like all of us, need to feel a connection with others. Really, the classroom is like a small representation of the community, even if that may be hard for students to see. So opening the doors and helping them to make connections with local community members can be a step to help them expand their horizons.

If students can begin to know community business owners, local artists and organizations, and other working professionals, they will likely see themselves in some of them, and think about what’s possible after high school.

Creating opportunities for this to happen during the school day, however, is critical, as extracurricular events often leave out a large population of students who cannot attend. One way this can be done? By using a Flex Block or Flex Period, WIN Time, or even a re-purposed Advisory period. We’ll dig more into that later.

These connections could move even beyond the walls of your community. There may be local business owners and organizations that have global reach or connections. Could those be shared with students?

Are there alumni who have moved overseas? Could they be interviewed?

In any instance, you could also survey students for their interests. If they could choose what they wanted to do in the future, what would that look like? Then, consider the options. Are there any companies, even if they aren’t local, who may have a representative willing to talk about what they do? Think a video game developer, makeup artist, or writer.

These opportunities can build excitement and boost engagement. At Hudson High School, they use a Flex Block to offer guest speaker sessions to help address a lack of student engagement after noticing that many students felt they didn’t know what to do after high school.

Let’s dig in just a little more to that guest speaker program at Hudson High School, and look at ways your school can start a similar program.

Hudson has a 60-minute Flex Block 3 days a week called ARC. ARC stands for Academics-Relationships-Community, a name that hits all the targets for what they wanted this time to accomplish. A Flex Block is a great way to give students time for academic support, to help them bond with other students in group activities and with teachers in an advisor role, and offers a chance for community-building.

They bring in a variety of guest speakers from the community – think a restauranteur, medical non-profit org, dog shelter reps, authors and more. Students use the Enriching Students flex scheduler to select and sign up for the speaker sessions they want to attend. During these sessions, the guest speakers share what they are passionate about, and students listen, learn, and ask questions. These sessions have been so effective at sparking students interest that they have resulted in signups for volunteer work and job applications.

Hudson High also allows for off-campus volunteering during ARC, with some students visiting the local Elementary school to work with kids. Or, they can use this time as part their internship program.

Are these guest speaker sessions during the Flex Block actually effective? One teacher shares, “After in-person presentations, there are always students who exchange emails and start corresponding to learn more about career options.” Mission accomplished!

How can you try this at your school to boost student engagement?

As we mentioned earlier, carve out some time for a Flex Block. Some schools already have this time built into their schedule, but may call it something different, like an activity period, resource period, WIN Time, “Mascot name” Time, Advisory, etc. It may occur daily, or like Hudson, a few days a week for a slightly longer amount of time. Could you repurpose this time, on occasion, to invite guest speakers to come in for talks?

If you don’t currently have a Flex Block, we have some resources to share about how to start. Often, school with take a few minutes from each period or block to create a ‘Flex’ period of time. One note – ensure that you are still meeting your state’s required amount of instructional minutes. Consider how you are using Flex and how you can keep track of how students are using this time. Enriching Students can help by showing a record of student attendance and engagement, as well as the type of sessions the student has attended – for example Enrichment, Career Learning, Extended Learning, etc.

And what about the work of starting a guest speaker program? Teachers Whitney and Gretchen from Hudson High suggest not doing everything all at once. “Start small and scale it up,” they shared,  “It’s easy to dream big about everything you want to do to make a perfect program that reaches every single kid. We honestly started with working our own social networks –  alumni with interesting or relevant jobs, our own friends and family – and work out the bugs in things like scheduling or timing. Then scale up.”

As their example illustrates, small steps can have big outcomes. While it takes some work, developing or Flex could be a do-able, low-impact strategy to help boost student engagement and build a connection to their future.