I am facilitating a spring cohort of online teaching certificate program right now about engaging students in an online setting.  I asked participants to discuss what the word “engagement” (as in student engagement) means for everyone, and at the end of the student, we asked a volunteer to create a word cloud which says a lot what student engagement is:

I would like to thank the participants in this program for sharing their thoughts, and thanks to Karen Robert from Yukon Public Schools for creating this word cloud:

Here is a quick summary:

An engaged student is:

• Challenged
• Driven
• Involved
• Sharing
• Participative
• Active
• Reflective
• Enthusiastic
• Reciprocal
• Responsible
• Taking initiative
• Motivated
• Productive

To create such learning conditions in students, it would be helpful if teachers can create such engaging activities for a course:

• Meaningful
• Relevant
• Collaborative
• Exciting
• Interactive
• Challenging
• Creative
• Promoting creative thinking
• Project-based
• Relevant
• Promoting mastery
• Non-threatening
• Giving students freedom
• Making use of students’ prior experience
• Building relationships
• Relevant to the real world
• Academically rigorous