Student Engagement and Motivation in the College Classroom
Please join us for a panel discussion lead by:
Dr. Roberta Schorr, Associate Professor of Urban Education
Dr. David Shernoff, Visiting Associate Professor
Dr. Lina Sanchez-Leal, Senior Research Associate, Department of Urban Education
Wednesday February 26, 2014 at 2:30pm-3:50pm (Free Period) in
RBS Room 302 in One Washington Park and Broadcast to Conklin 449 and Room 4087
There is little doubt that greater learning occurs when students are meaningfully engaged in
learning. Understanding when and how to view student engagement is not as easy as it may
seem. For example, engagement is often characterized along a continuum ranging from
disengaged to highly engaged. But, such characterizations may be misleading, and in some cases,
counterproductive. They may not take into account some of the many different types of
engagement that can occur during a lesson. For example, three students may appear to be doing
the required work, but one is just doing it in order to get the assignment done, a second may be
doing it out of a sincere desire to learn the material with understanding, and the third may look
busy, but actually be doing or thinking about something entirely different. Even for the same
student, there are moment to moment shifts in engagement that occur throughout any one class
session. For example, a single student may be initially bored by the lesson, then become
interested in a problem, encounter frustration while solving it and stop working for a few minutes,
and then realize that he can use a different strategy at which time, he feels genuinely excited.
Understanding the different types of engagement, and the many different types of momentary
shifts is both highly complex and critically essential and the subject of our research over the past
decade.
This panel discussion will examine current theories and research for understanding and
fostering student engagement in your class across students with various motivational profiles.
During this session, we also share some of the different ways in which students engage in
learning, and how to support them in the process.
Examples of topics that will be covered include:
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Concepts of motivation and student engagement
Applications of these concepts to educational practice
Theory and research on enhancing motivation and engagement in learning
The role that the learning environment plays in shaping students’ engagement
For more information contact: Dr. Roberta Schorr at schorr@rci.rutgers.edu