Teaching a Commitment to Excellence

Can we teach students to commit themselves to excellence-to the pursuit of mastery?  When we celebrate and commend students who have committed themselves to excellence, does it increase the chance that they will continue to pursue mastery?

The characteristics of the work that we give students influence students’ level of engagement and the likelihood that students will commit themselves to excellence in completing the work.  In several other blog posts, I have reflected on how choice, affiliation, affirmation, and other design qualities increase engagement and encourage students to pursue mastery.  Clearly, a task can be intrinsically motivating.

Although we should provide students with intrinsically motivating work, providing the right kind of extrinsic motivation also plays an important role in teaching students to commit to excellence.  My previous blog post includes the text of remarks in which I commend students at the Virginia Odyssey of the Mind competition for their pursuit of mastery.

However, Dan Pink states us that extrinsic rewards can turn play into work.  He warns us about contingent rewards, what he refers to as if/then rewards-if you do this, then you get that.  He observes that if/then rewards can actually negatively affect motivation and narrow our thinking.  Nevertheless, regardless of whether you think we overemphasize grades, isn’t there still a role for extrinsic rewards that are not of the if-then type?

Shouldn’t we explicitly celebrate when students pursue mastery?  Shouldn’t we encourage students to take pride in their pursuit of excellence?  In addition to providing intrinsically motivating work, if our commendations contribute to students’ satisfaction with the pursuit of mastery, then we are teaching students to commit themselves to excellence.  Let’s look for opportunities in our classrooms, schools, and school districts to celebrate and commend students who have committed themselves to excellence.

How do you celebrate and commend students for pursuing mastery in your classroom, school, or school district?  How can we celebrate and commend students for committing themselves to excellence, while avoiding the pitfalls of which Dan Pink warns us?

The Joy of the Pursuit of Mastery: Remarks at the Virginia Odyssey of the Mind Awards Ceremony

To sum up this day in one word, WOW!  Today we have seen mouse-trap powered vehicles, complex machines, classical characters as tour guides, weight-bearing balsa wood structures, interesting series of changes, and money-making characters. WOW!

Odyssey of the Mind participants, I know that your performance today, and the preparation for today, has been very rewarding. However, I hesitate to use the word fun.  The word fun might suggest that it was fun like going to an amusement park, a movie theater, or a party.  Odyssey of the Mind is rewarding, even fun at times, but it also involves hard work. 

Participants, you should be proud of your pursuit of mastery.  Recognize that you never truly master Odyssey of the Mind, or any pursuit, for that matter.  As Daniel Pink observes, you can approach mastery, you can come close, but you never fully master a pursuit.  But, as I think you have discovered, the joy comes in the pursuit-in trying to get to mastery. 

One Odyssey of the Mind Coach posted an entry on my blog in which he described how his team of 5^th grade students reacted when a vehicle they created broke during the competition.  He explained
how the students wisely set the car aside, completed the other required tasks, and then calmly working together to repair the vehicle and perform the task with 23 seconds remaining in the competition.  Overcoming challenges like this brings joy.  And participants, what brings you together-what unites you- is that you actually do find this to be fun, in a crazy sort of way.  It is fun working with others who share your crazy zeal-your passion for Odyssey of the Mind, your desire to overcome the challenges that Odyssey of the Mind throws your way.

So, during this ceremony, we recognize the winners in each of the categories.  Perhaps these teams have come the closest to mastery.  But all of you should be proud of your pursuit of mastery.  So savor these moments.  Cherish what you have accomplished during this pursuit.

I want to close with a challenge.  Commit yourselves to the quest for mastery, not just in Odyssey of the Mind, but in your other endeavors.  You will continue to see that the quest for mastery is incredibly rewarding.  Congratulations!

___________________

*Why is the work of Odyssey of the Mind so engaging?  Check out http://tinyurl.com/4cghnqa

Blended Learning Varies in Effectiveness

Even when teachers skillfully tap into students' interest in digital tools to engage them in rigorous learning, their efforts may not include blended learning.  In a blog post today, Tom Vander Ark, a former Superintendent and the first Executive Director for Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, responded to my recent blog post entitled Using Technology to Transform Teaching and Learning.  Tom suggests that we should not be satisfied with students' effective use of digital tools in traditional brick and mortar settings. Following up on his post on HuffPost Education, Tom advocates the use of a blended model, in which students spend at least a portion of the day in an online environment. 

Blended learning should be encouraged in the context of a larger vision for teaching and learning.  In my last post, I described how students' use of digital tools in York County, Virginia is promoted within the context of our vision for engaging students in rigorous work.  Just as one should not assume that the use of technology in traditional brick and mortar settings will automatically yield benefits, one should not make the same assumption with blended learning.  Not all blended learning opportunities are equal or equally valuable.  So, as we expand blended learning options, let's be clear regarding how they fit in a larger vision for teaching and learning.

Tom Vander Ark recognizes variations among blended learning options.  He notes that many of the big state and national online learning providers are a "first gen" version of blended learning, featuring mostly flat and sequential content.  They do not realize the potential for a student-centered, customized approach, as described by Tom. 

Tom praises blended models not only for improved learning, but also for improved productivity.  While blended models offer tremendous learning potential, effective blended models may not be any less expensive than traditional brick and mortar models.  Tom envisions an important role for teachers.  For example, they might  custom-craft a " tech-rich project-based environment  .  .  .  (and) teach small groups ready for a specific lesson."  Less effective blended models minimize the role of the teacher and student-teacher interaction.   Last week I facilitated a panel discussion regarding virtual learning options at the Virtual Learning Virginia Conference.  It was clear from panel discussions and informal conversations that some blended learning experiences are cheap, but lack much student-teacher interaction.

We (the York County School Division) offer more than fifty virtual courses to our students.  We have applied to the Virginia Department of Education for approval as a multi-division provider in order to work with other school districts in Virginia to serve their students.  However, I am even more enthusiastic about our initial steps with integrating virtual learning with the courses in our brick and mortar schools.  Several of our teachers of virtual courses are experimenting with using our digital learning platform as part of their more traditional courses.  Their students access web sites, videos, problems, and other content through our digital learning platform.  All of our middle school teachers of Spanish, Algebra, and Geometry include a virtual component in their courses.  For example, one middle school Algebra teacher held a videoconference with students via Elluminate in order to review for a mid-term exam.  Student posed questions orally and through the chat feature.  The teacher watched students attempt to solve problems, while also demonstrating solutions herself.  This videoconference and our other initial steps with blended learning reinforce our sense that blended models offer significant potential.

Where will our journey with blended models take us?  Tom writes, "The old elementary job of one teacher and 25 kids of  the same age but varying learning levels in the same room for 180 is too hard.  The old high school job of teaching five sections of 30 kids doesn’t work very well for students or teachers." He also calls for dynamic scheduling, team-based staffing, case-managed services, and competency-based assessments embedded in learning experiences.

I'm not sure what blended models will look like in a few years, but, as we move forward let's proceed within the context of a broader student-centered vision for teaching and learning.  Also, let's not overpromise in terms of the cost of effective blended models.  While blended models are not a cheap panacea, they offer substantial potential for engaging students in rigorous learning. 

Using Technology to Transform Teaching & Learning

Students’ use of digital tools should be promoted in the context of a broader vision of teaching and learning.  Without a broader vision, technology may merely automate what has always been done.  Using PowerPoint as part of a lecture is an example of automation, regardless of how interesting and informative the lecture is.  Similarly, students in a computer lab may complete the same problems that previous students solved on a worksheet.  With automation, nothing has really changed.   Techno-cheerleaders, as explained in the previous blog post, may assume that technology automatically yields benefits, but that is not the case.  

Focusing on a broader vision for teaching and learning increases the likelihood that technology will transform teaching and learning, rather than just automating old practices.  In York County, Virginia, our efforts to tap into students’ interest in digital tools are occurring in the context of our efforts to engage students in rigorous work.

Designing students’ work with digital tools so that it reflects the Schletchy Center’s design qualities helps us realize the potential of technology integration. 

Design Qualities That Promote Student Engagement

Product Focus:  Are digital tasks and activities structured so that what students learn is linked to a product, performance, or exhibition to which the student attaches personal value?  Tabb Middle School Algebra students recently created tutorials in Animoto to teach solving two-step equations, converting fractions to decimals, and other skills. They then posted the instructional videos on the class web site. 

Similarly, students in an Algebra class at York High School recently used cell phones, flip cameras, and video cameras to record the answers to an exam review on topics such as algebraic properties and solving inequalities.  They posted the videotaped answers on the class web site and on SchoolTube. 

The teachers report that their students took this work seriously because they wanted their explanations to be accurate and easy for their peers and others to understand.  As Alan November explains, publishing student work on the web gives students a compelling sense of leaving a legacy.  November states in Empowering Students with Technology,

As children grow up, they have a developmental need to know that they can make a difference and be productive in society.  Using communications technology to add value to the world is one way to teach students that they can make a difference and that their work is important.”  (p.43)

Affirmation of Performance:  Are we designing digital tasks and activities so that the work of students is visible to persons who are important to students?  Is it clear to students that the quality of their performance matters to peers and others whose opinions matter to students?  Students at the Waller Mill Elementary Fine Arts Magnet School are preparing for a film festival during which each class will screen one or more videos for popcorn-eating visitors, such as “Math Wars” and “Rock Cycle Video.”  Although Oscars will be awarded, the public display of work will be even more affirming. 

A fourth grade teacher at Bethel Manor Elementary School arranged a videoconference with one of her student’s parents who was deployed in the Middle East.  The student treasured reading a story that he had written to his deployed father.  She certainly felt affirmed by this school-to-family connection.

Affiliation:  Are we designing digital tasks so that students have the opportunity to work with peers, parents, outside experts, and other adults, including, but not limited to the teacher?  A Yorktown Middle School student loved connecting with survey respondents from throughout the world.  She created a health survey as part of the study on global obesity that she was doing for a culminating IB Middle Years Programme project.  She enlisted friends and staff members in seeking responses via e-mails and Twitter.  By the end of the first week, she received more than 200 responses from the United States, Canada, Korea, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.  Energized by the global affiliation through the survey, she is analyzing her results using Excel.

Novelty and Variety:  Are we giving students the opportunity to use a wide range of tools in a variety of ways?  Seventh grade English students at Grafton Middle School worked collaboratively with one another using a variety of tools (GoogleDocs, MovieMaker, PowerPoint and Audacity) to create and publish  presentations regarding the Holocaust. 

Choice:  Do our students have the opportunity to choose either what they are to learn or how they learn?  Students will be more engaged if they frame questions to answer and identify problems to solve  even with significant guidance and structure from the teacher. 

Authenticity:  Are we linking the work of students to topics of interest to students?  In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and the start of the nuclear crisis in Japan, York High School students videoconferenced with a teacher eighty miles from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.  Student interest in the crisis in Japan drew them into this lesson.

Rigor

Designing student work with digital tools that reflects rigor also helps realize the potential of technology integration.  In creating student work, we should focus on rigor as envisioned by Tony Wagner, rather than traditional notions of rigor which emphasize covering content.  Wagner emphasizes that in a rigorous school, student work involves the following skills:

·         Critical thinking and problem solving;

·         Collaboration across networks and leading by influence;

·         Agility and adaptability;

·         Initiative and entrepreneurialism;

·         Effective oral and written communication;

·         Accessing and analyzing information; and

·         Curiosity and imagination.

Skills:  Are we designing work with digital tools that requires problem solving, collaboration, adaptability, initiative, communication and other skills, often referred to as 21^st century skills?  Students at Yorktown Middle School create a weekly, school-wide broadcast with news and feature stories.  The students choose story topics, write the scripts, film each segment, edit footage, and assess their broadcasts.  They overcome technical difficulties, cancelled interviews, and other challenges as they work to meet their deadlines.

These students have a sense of ownership of their work, rather than just seeing it as an assignment from their teacher.  Their teacher plays a key role, helping students choose story topics and suggesting approaches to stories for their consideration, but the students have a strong sense of responsibility for their learning and work.  This teacher’s approach reflects the philosophy that Alan November articulates as he advocates shifting control to students so that they own the learning.  As November observes, “the process of shifting control of who owns the problems can result in some of the most motivated and focused student work possible.”  (p.55)

The Rigor/Relevance Framework, developed by the International Center for Leadership in Education (http://www.leadered.com/), integrates the knowledge taxonomy and an application continuum.  The framework shows the connection between levels of rigor, as reflected by the knowledge taxonomy, and relevance, involving the application of knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems.  Applying knowledge to unpredictable situations is the highest level of application.



Rigor/Relevance:  Does student work with digital tools develop cognitive skills throughout the knowledge taxonomy and involve adaptation and application of knowledge and skills?  Fourth grade students at the Yorktown Elementary School Math, Science, and Technology Magnet participate in the Stock Market game (http://www.stockmarketgame.org/). Students manage a virtual portfolio, starting with a $100,000 balance, analyzing investment opportunities via the internet to assess which stocks to buy and sell to try to increase the value of their portfolio.  They work in teams, taking turns serving as captain, researcher, trader, and checker.  Cleary, they are applying knowledge and skills as they invest in the volatile, unpredictable stock market. 



These examples illustrate the power of promoting the use of digital tools in the context of a broader vision of teaching and learning.   They reflect an assumption that the use of digital tools is not the ultimate goal, but rather a means to an end.  As Alan November emphasizes in Empowering Students with Technology, “The real problem is not teaching technology skills.  Many of our students can learn about technology as fast as-if not faster than-adults.  What our students cannot learn on their own, and what makes teachers more important than ever, is the urgent need to teach critical thinking and global communication skills.” (p.32)  Clearly, using digital tools to engage students in rigorous work can help transform teaching and learning, rather than just automating old practices!

Are You a Techno-Cheerleader?

My 13-year old son sometimes entertains himself with “Hold the Button,” a free application that he downloaded to his iPod Touch.  He touches the fingerprint image on his iPod for as long as he can and the application records how long he stays in contact with the fingerprint image.  He then checks to see if he earned a spot on the day, week, or all-time leader board. 

A few years ago, my daughter, now 16 years old, would occasionally visit mysterygoogle.com.  Although mysterygoogle.com is no longer in operation, mysteryseeker.com is very similar.  Mysteryseeker is, like mysterygoogle was, a search engine.  My daughter would type in a search query, select search and then receive google search results of a different query that was submitted just before her query was submitted.  So she would receive the results of someone else’s query.  She never received the results for her query.  For example, if one enters “Alan November” as a query, one will receive the results for a previous query, such as “stop spamming” or some other topic.

Now, technology can be a great tool, but, if our students were using the “Hold the Button” application and mysterygoogle.com, would we consider it rigorous work?  Of course not.  Some students might find it engaging, but it certainly would not be rigorous, regardless of what your concept of academic rigor is.  The brief video below certainly makes this clear.

I opened our school division’s Leadership Academy last August by describing my kids’ use of “Hold the Button” and mysteryseeker.com.  I spoke of the importance of not being techno-cheerleaders. High school cheerleaders are great in that we count on their automatic support, enthusiasm, and school spirit.  However, Mark Bauerlein uses the techno-cheerleader label for anyone who unthinkingly accepts the premise that the use of technology will yield automatic gains in skills and knowledge.   Bauerlein criticizes young people and the way they use technology.  He even offensively refers to young people as “the dumbest generation.”  In his book, entitled The Dumbest Generation, he writes,

All the ingredients for making an informed and intelligient citizen are in place.  But it hasn’t happened . . . Instead of opening young American minds to the stores of civilization and science and politics, technology has contracted their horizon to themselves, to the social scene around them.  Young people have never been so intensely mindful of and present to one another, so enabled in adolescent contact. . . Adolescents have always wasted their time and chances, of course, but the Dumbest Generation has raised the habit into a brash and insistent practice.

Bauerlein goes on to cite educators who acknowledge that students have a lot to learn when it comes to technology.  He refers to “teachers who noticed that, for all their adroitness with technology, students don’t seek, find, and manage information very well.  They play complex games and hit the social networking sites for hours, the educators said, but they don’t always cite pertinent sources and compose organized responses to complete class assignments.”   

Bauerlein is obnoxious and off-base at times (many times) in his book, but I certainly agree with him that we should not be techno-cheerleaders who assume that technology automatically is beneficial. Fortunately, many examples exist around the world of teachers skillfully tapping into students’ interest in digital tools to engage them in rigorous work.  These teachers are using digital tools to informate, not automate, as Alan November(@globalearner) emphasizes. Drawing on the work of Shoshana Zuboff, he writes "Automating essentially means 'bolting' technology on top of current processes and procedures."  With informating, "students assume much more responsibility for managing their own learning."  For example, he notes, "educators can challenge students to serve as co-authors with students in other countries to publish their work for a global audience."

Why are teens willing to spend hours playing “Hold the Button” or entering queries on MysterySeeker.com? Do teens have a sense of membership in a “Hold the Button” global community stemming from the ability to compare results with others around the world? If so, that reinforces the notion that we need to tap into opportunities for students to connect, collaborate, and even compete globally to create and share work.

  

“Hold the Button” and MysterySeeker.com are fun non-examples of using digital tools to engage students in rigorous work. I invite your assistance in identifying additional non-examples.  Contrasting interesting non-examples with examples of effective, valuable use of technology can play a small part in helping build a shared understanding and ownership of a vision for students’ use of digital tools.  So, what applications, web sites, or other digital tools capture student interest without having obvious educational value?  Why do they capture student interest and what are the implications for the work we provide students? Please add a non-example or two to the GoogleDoc posted at http://tinyurl.com/worthlessdigital.

P.S.  My personal best on “Hold the Button” is a very unimpressive seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds!

The Power of a Mousetrap Vehicle

The judges and audience members watched as my daughter and her teammates guided their mouse-trap powered vehicle through six tasks and performed a skit related to the vehicle.  They watched as the vehicle moved across the floor, striking a lever and raising a flag.  The students adlibbed when they needed multiple attempts for the vehicle to strike a target.  The judges and audience members listened to the sock puppets, the ventriloquist/rapper, and other characters.  Eventually, my daughter and her Odyssey of the Mind teammates concluded their performance, twenty seconds before reaching the eight-minute time limit.

We can learn a lot from Odyssey of the Mind (OotM) regarding how to engage students in rigorous work.  The mousetrap vehicle challenge has important characteristics, or design qualities, that contribute to student engagement and ultimately student achievement.  The OotM mousetrap vehicle is very powerful in terms of student engagement and achievement.

Let's examine how the mousetrap vehicle challenge exhibits several of the design qualities identified by John Antonetti and Phillip Schlechty in separate works.

Design Qualities

Choice:   Each OotM team chooses one of five problems.  My daughter and her teammates are each taking Physics so they were attracted to the problem which involved designing, building, and operating a vehicle that uses a mousetrap as its only source of energy.  The other problems, including one which involved a classical character acting as a tour guide and one which required constructing a weight-bearing balsa wood structure, were not as appealing to my daughter's team.  They were, however, attracted to the challenge of the mousetrap vehicle problem.  They were much more engaged in their work because they could choose a project of personal interest.   

The challenge was to build a vehicle and guide it through six tasks.  As required, my daughter’s team chose four tasks from among six options, such as driving through a tunnel, hitting a target, changing direction, and making a delivery.  Their vehicle also had to perform two team-created challenges.   (Because the team is still competing, my daughter and her teammates have stressed that I cannot reveal the challenges they created.)  This opportunity to choose which tasks to complete and to design two tasks helped capture and maintain the commitment of the students. 

Clear Expectations/Product Standards: My daughter and her teammates knew what they needed to accomplish.  They knew the scoring standards that would be used to assess their performance.  They knew the different maximum point values of the various tasks.  They also knew that they would be judged for the overall creativity of the performance.  The students enjoyed developing the characters of their performance, including a demanding coach, a gamer who thinks he is a dragon, and a ventriloquist/rapper.  Clarity of expectations facilitated the engagement of my daughter and her teammates. 

Learning with Others/Affiliation:  One of my daughter's favorite parts of OotM was being part of a group that wanted to complete at a high level of excellence.  As she explained, the members of her team connected with one another through their OotM work.  It reminds me of Ken Robinson's reflections on the sense of belonging to a tribe with a shared passion.  In The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, he writes that "what connects a tribe is a common commitment."  This connection provides OotM participants with important benefits.  As Robinson writes, "Connecting with people who share the same passions affirms that you're not alone; that there are others like you . . .It doesn't matter whether you like the people as individuals, or even the work they do . . .What matters first is having validation for the passion you have in common."  Not all members of the team socialize with one another outside of OotM, but they enjoyed the many hours spent together preparing for the competition because they shared a passion for their OotM work.

The affiliation among OotM team members encourages each individual to perform at their highest level.  As Robinson observes, "members of a passionate community tend to drive each other to explore the real extent of their talents . . . the opportunities for mutual inspiration can become intense."

Sense of Audience/Affirmation of Performance/Product Focus

The students worked hard creating their product, their performance.  They knew their parents, their friends, and other OotM participants would be watching.  The mother of one of the team members marveled that the students were willing to work so hard preparing for an eight-minute performance, but the students sensed that the performance would be affirming.  The product focus and sense of audience also contributed to the students' willingness to commit to months of preparation for an eight-minute performance.

Levels of Engagement

It is easy to contrast the OotM students' high level of engagement with the other levels of engagement in the Schlechty Center's framework.    Obviously, the students were not in rebellion or in retreat, the two lowest levels of engagement.  They also were not just ritually compliant, going through the motions of doing the work without connecting to the work.  They were not asking the question which typifies the ritual compliance mindset: what is the minimum I have to do?

Some of the students may be strategically compliant at times in school, rather than being authentically engaged.   Perhaps they view some of their work in school as a means to other goals, such as a grade, class rank, or college acceptance.  Schlechty makes three key observations about the implications of strategic compliance:

·        students learn at high levels, but they have a superficial grasp of what they learn;

·        students do not retain as much in comparison with situations in which they are authentically engaged; and

·        students do not transfer what they learn from one context to another as readily as if they are authentically engaged.

The members of my daughter's team clearly were not just strategically compliant.  They were not participating in OotM to be able to list it as an activity on their college application.  Even if resume-building were a part of their initial motivation for participation, the engaging design qualities of the OotM work cultivated authentic engagement.   My daughter's team viewed the mousetrap vehicle challenge as compelling.  Schlechty points out that authentic engagement leads to learning at higher levels, having a deeper grasp of what is learned, retaining learning, and being able to transfer what is learned to new contexts.  One reason for the deeper learning is that authentic engagement is associated with a willingness to persist in the face of difficulty. For example, two nights before the competition, the mouse trap vehicle my daughter's team built still was not consistently travelling far enough. They didn't just give up and say, "We followed the directions and completed the task.  Let's just hope it works."  Instead, they brainstormed a variety of potential solutions.  (I'd like to share how they solved the distance issue to illustrate their problem-solving ability, but they have strictly forbidden me from specifying their solution because they advanced to the state competition!) Though they identified the solution two nights before the competition, they gathered again on the Friday night before the event.  They even negotiated later curfews with their parents to extend their preparations.  This clearly reflects authentic engagement. 

Rigor

Traditional notions of rigor often reflect a content-coverage mentality.  Content knowledge certainly matters in OotM.  One of my daughter's teammates articulately described how he applied knowledge from his Physics class relating to the radius of a circle in deciding the size of the wheels of the mousetrap vehicle.  They applied this content knowledge and evaluated various options for designing and constructing their mousetrap vehicles.  Clearly, OotM work requires thinking that is at the highest levels of knowledge taxonomies.

OotM work also has several other features that constitute rigor, according to the rigor/relevance framework developed by Phil Daggett's International Center for Leadership in Education.  The learning is interdisciplinary, involving the application of knowledge across disciplines.  Applying knowledge in unpredictable situations is another hallmark of rigor, according to the Center's rigor/relevance framework, and the efforts to guide the vehicle through the various tasks certainly involved a lot of unpredictability.

Another aspect of the rigor of OotM work is the extent to which it requires the skills commonly referred to as 21st century skills.  Students think critically and creatively, solve problems, collaborate, show initiative, and communicate orally.

Implications for Teaching and Learning in Schools

The OotM mousetrap vehicle is very powerful in terms of student engagement and achievement. OotM illustrates that the quality of work given to students matters.  The work of OotM features several important design qualities: choice; clear expectations/product standards; learning with others/affiliation; and sense of audience/affirmation of performance/product focus.  Every state requires teachers to teach the state’s standards for content and skills.  Educators do not need to ignore state standards in order to design engaging work.  However, we need to avoid adopting a content coverage mentality that will lead at best to strategic compliance , which is associated with a superficial grasp of what is learned.  By providing engaging work, we capture the joy of teaching and learning.  Student work does not need to reflect all the design qualities to engage students, but incorporating design qualities will contribute to student engagement and achievement.  Promoting the authentic engagement of students will lead to deeper learning, as well as firmer, longer-lasting mastery of content and skills.

Elizabeth R. Bowen, Student Engagement and Its Relation to Quality Work Design,

http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.schlechtycenter.org/tools/prod/4048/original/bowen_pdf_litreview.pdf?1272417199

John Antonetti:

http://www.colleaguesoncall.com/docs/our-associates.html

http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/learn_more.php

Phil Daggett, International Center for Leadership in Education:

http://www.leadered.com/

Rigor/Relevance Framework from International Center for Leadership in Education: http://www.leadered.com/rrr.html

http://www.schlechtycenter.org/

Schlechty Center of Engagement, levels of engagement document:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.schlechtycenter.org/tools/prod/4046/original/sc_pdf_engagement.pdf?1272415798

http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/

http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/the-element