Christine Kenney, Melissa Sreckovick, and Eric Common from the University of Michigan – Flint presented an asynchronous session at the Lilly Conference on easy to implement practices to promote student engagement. Their perspective as teacher educators was evident, and while the activities they described are used in K-12, they can also be beneficial in higher education. They presented as a team and created a fun and informative session. The three strategies they discussed don’t require a lot of preparation, and they are easy to implement. While the strategies may be techniques we already use and didn’t know the names, being intentional in their use is important. The first strategy presented was opportunities to respond. This is a prompt, question or activity to increase student responses. Examples can be verbal or non-verbal responses in face-to-face or even asynchronous online courses. Students can engage in check points or pause to complete guided notes — even online. Precorrection is a strategy that identifies a behavior of concern and addresses it with a prompt with support before the behavior happens. One of their examples was plagiarism and the desired behavior is writing in their own words. The prompt is stated and includes support, such as using software to check for plagiarism before submitting. I thought clearly identifying the desired behavior and adding a resource or support is a fantastic way to provide precorrections to prevent behaviors of concern. Instructional choice is a strategy that provides ownership and empowers students by providing choice. It is closely related to UDL, and instructional choice can be within or across assignments. For example, the format of submission may be selected or students can choose to work individually or in groups. These three simple strategies can be readily implemented. I appreciate the details the speakers provided. This helps instructors to be more intentional and explicit in how they implement these strategies and communicate their reasoning and expectations to students. This was a fun session with energetic speakers. I will keep these strategies in mind, and think about including opportunities to respond, precorrection, and instructional choice.
