Chalsey Slaughterbeck

RDG 323

Trombley

19 September 2020

Creating Engaging and Motivating Learning Environments

Link to Survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdZydE7bvChSHLvD5FMLsQOSeESuSUyRfJjAL

XZTyZTOVvDrg/viewform?usp=sf_link

I got a decent amount of responses to the survey that I created for this assignment. These

students are all in college but aren’t all in the teacher’s college. With this in mind, I thought it

was so interesting to see the variety in the responses! One of the aspects that I paid attention to

the most was engagement. The first question that I asked in my survey was about what types of

activities the students remembered and really liked. Scrolling through the responses, I found that

many students said that the types of activities they enjoyed the most were really engaging and

collaborative. According to the first article, “Greater confidence motivates students to engage

with and successfully complete increasingly complex content-area reading and writing tasks, and

this positive experience leads to improved student learning and achievement” (Irvine, Meltzer,

Dukes, 2007). Based on this, it’s clear why the student’s favorite assignments were highly

engaging, more engaging content leads to improved learning.

Another aspect that I wanted to touch on in my survey was making sure that I could

create content for every kind of learner. Students learn in many different ways, and as an

educator, its harmful to go into teaching with a “one size fits all” assumption. Every student
learns a different way, and I really wanted to see what kind of learners these students were. I

included a link to a learner type test in one of my questions so that the students could take it and

see what kind of learner they were. As you can see below, the results show a mix between the

different types of learning. According to the second article, “As school leaders make plans for

where digital learning happens in the curriculum, they must consider adopting pathways that

engage all students and look carefully at how optional programs can functionally exclude

students who are already underrepresented in technology” (Reich 2019). Since students aren’t

given the opportunity for in person classes, there must be extra consideration on how to

accommodate for each type of learner with technology. Like the article stated, some students

might already be at a disadvantage when it comes to technology usage. This is why I wanted to

ask questions that related back to what type of learner these students were, how they learn the

best, and what they’ve noticed during their education.

Works Cited

Irvin, J. L., Meltzer, J., & Dukes, M. S. (2007). Chapter 1: Student Motivation,

Engagement, and Achievement. In Taking action on adolescent literacy an

implementation guide for school leaders. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision

and Curriculum Development.

Reich, J. (2019). Teaching Our Way to Digital Equity. In The Tech Savvy School (5th ed., Vol.

76, pp. 30-35). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum

Development.