Thomas Riley

Examining student engagement through technology and content

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This action research study aims to examine different participation and engagement strategies in the context of a 10th grade World History classroom. When joining the class, it seemed as though many students were not continually engaging with the content. The purpose of this research is to examine the different ways a student may be participating, even if they did not look to be. But also attempting to measure different engagement strategies to see how effective they were to the class. Data for this study includes survey data, formal and informal interviews, and classroom observations. The results of the study showed that students seemed to be aware of the lack of participation they had within the classroom as well as what might be inhibiting their ability to do so, for example, technology. As well as supporting evidence showing that when content was relevant more to what the students could relate to there was an increase in engagement for moments at a time, whether that be through current events or relevancy to the students.