Hey! Look at me! ... Is Your Content Engaging?

I'm going to make a generic statement and assume that most people who create programs, lessons, videos, podcasts or any kind of content make it a mission to be engaging, right? As I write this article, I'm writing it not only to give some valuable insight in the world of instructional design... but also do it in a way that keeps you reading till the end!

This week we dive even deeper into UDL or Universal Design for Learning. If you missed the first two articles this month about this topic, be sure to hop on over there first and then continue one with this one so you get a holistic picture of the concept!

1) What is Universal Design for Learning?

2) Setting the Foundation for Expert Learners

Ok, so let's first all get on the same page on the brain science behind engagement that set the foundation for these guidelines. To be engaged in this context is simply to be actively interested in or paying attention to the situation. The tricky thing here for all of you instructional designers out there is... EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT.

"There are a variety of sources that can influence individual variation in affect [of engagement] including neurology, culture, personal relevance, subjectivity, and background knowledge, along with a variety of other factors."

So how can you create a program, course, workshop, or any type of learning experience to engage everyone when one thing that engages one learner totally disengages another??

The answer is luckily simple, but not less work on your end, and it's something we will continue to come back to the next three weeks as we dive into the other pillars of the UDL graphic organizer, and that is... provide multiple means of engagement.

Sounds simple right? The good thing, is that it really can be simple. Simple adjustments to what you've already created can transform your program from one that engaged just a few types of learners, to one that engages many different types of learners, hence, improving the overall effectiveness of your program.

So let's dive into all of the strategies to help make your content more engaging!

Note* To make this article engaging and not too long, I've only broken down some checkpoints for each guideline, so be sure to explore more at this website below to see even more ways to increase engagement!

https://udlguidelines.cast.org/engagement

Spark excitement and curiosity for learning.

The UDL Guidelines highlight three ways to recruit interest: give more choice and autonomy, optimize relevance and value, and minimize threats and distractions.

When you create your learning programs, you want to ensure that you're giving opportunity for choice but do so appropriately. For example, you don't want to give the learner's choice over the learning objective, but you would want to provide opportunities for choice as to how they reach that learning objective. So let's see some more examples on how to give the right kind of choice and level of independence that must be optimized to ensure engagement.

Provide learners with as much discretion and autonomy as possible by providing choices in such things as:

• The level of perceived challenge - does the activity or lesson seem too difficult or easy to the learner? Gauging your learner's prior knowledge will help you make a good first impression with your content so that it is perceived at a level of challenge that piques their interest.
• The type of rewards or recognition available- learners are heavily incentives by extrinsic motivators such as certificates, awards, and points. This type of gamification is commonly used and encouraged, but there should not be the only way to engage the learner (in my opinion), because you may end up with situation of people just trying to earn points and win, rather than reaching the learning objective.
• The context or content used for practicing and assessing skills - are the follow-up activities and projects that go along with your content enjoyable to do? Does it involve creativity and/or the opportunity to solve a real-world problem?
• The sequence or timing for completion of subcomponents of tasks - this is really important in my eyes because too often I've experienced and worked with programs that don't build on each lesson appropriately. Be sure you test out your programs and get feedback on the pacing and whether they felt like the content got more complex without being confusing.
• Allow learners to participate in the design of classroom activities and academic tasks - my students LOVED when I gave them the opportunities to be the leaders of their own learning. When I taught 6th grade science, I had the students actually create a lesson plan and a demonstration to teach the other students about weathering and erosion. They had so much fun, and their depth of knowledge was much more given this opportunity, than if I were to go the more traditional route.

For more examples on optimizing for choice and autonomy, explore here: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/engagement/recruiting-interest/choice-autonomy

"Individuals are rarely interested in information and activities that have no relevance or value. In an educational setting, one of the most important ways that teachers recruit interest is to highlight the utility and relevance, of learning and to demonstrate that relevance through authentic, meaningful activities." -CAST

You are going to love the opportunities here, and in my opinion, it's one of the easiest and effective ways in which you can tweak what you already have!

Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be:

• Personalized and contextualized to learners’ lives
• Culturally relevant and responsive
• Socially relevant
• Age and ability appropriate
• Appropriate for different racial, cultural, ethnic, and gender groups

Designing activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants is another great way to optimize value. For more examples, explore here: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/engagement/recruiting-interest/relevance-value-authenticity

Tackle challenges with focus and determination.

Great! So that was breaking down one of the three guidelines for engagement, let's move on to the next one, sustaining effort and persistence.

"When motivated to do so, many learners can regulate their attention and affect in order to sustain the effort and concentration that such learning will require. However, learners differ considerably in their ability to self-regulate in this way. " - CAST

One of the strategies the UDL Guidelines highlights and something I see building up more and more in the world today is fostering collaboration and community. With the internet and access to billions of people worldwide, there has never been an easier way to network and collaborate, so take advantage of that! But you don't need the internet if you're working with learners in person, take this as an opportunity to group learners together with common interests. Working with others that have similar passions can really help engage them in the activity!

Have you ever been intrigued by a choose your own adventure book or video game or been able to select your level of difficulty before playing? These are engagement strategies that you can apply to your own programs by offering differentiated degrees of difficulty or complexity where the learning objectives can still be met.

When you modify your content to have varying levels of difficulty, you can also be flexible in what is considered reaching the learning goals so don't let that stress you out. Remember, you can have the control to make your learning experience engaging and there is no black & white rulebook to follow when it comes to educational programs.

"Learners vary not only in their skills and abilities, but also in the kinds of challenges that motivate them to do their best work. All learners need to be challenged, but not always in the same way. " -CAST

Harness the power of emotions and motivation in learning.

The final guideline for engagement in focused around self regulation. You can incorporate this by promoting expectations that optimize motivation, facilitating personal coping skills and strategies, and developing self assessment and reflections.

In you're in the classroom reading this, it is no surprise to you that you could have students that have outbursts or very high emotional reactions to activities you try to do. To promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation, you can provide prompts, reminders, guides, rubrics, checklists that focus on self-regulatory goals like reducing the frequency of aggressive outbursts in response to frustration and increase the frequency of self-reflection and self-reinforcements. Put the power in the learner's hands to take action to manage their own frustrations, instead of being the one authoring what to do in emotionally sensitive times. CAST gives a great example here:

"Appropriately handling subject specific phobias and judgments of “natural” aptitude (e.g., “how can I improve on the areas I am struggling in? ” rather than “I am not good at math”)"

Emotion plays a HUGE factor in learning, and is absolutely directly connected with engagement. If a student isn't emotionally stable about what they are learning, if they are feeling down on themselves or feeling incompetent, they will be going into the learning experience with a closed mindset and lack of motivation.

So what can you do to be proactive in these situations? Integrate more self-assessment and reflection so these emotional struggles and breakthroughs can be visible to the learner.

• Offer devices, aids, or charts to assist individuals in learning to collect, chart and display data from their own behavior for the purpose of monitoring changes in those behaviors
• Use activities that include a means by which learners get feedback and have access to alternative scaffolds (e.g., charts, templates, feedback displays) that support understanding progress in a manner that is understandable and timely

"In order to develop better capacity for self-regulation, learners need to learn to monitor their emotions and reactivity carefully and accurately. Individuals differ considerably in their capability and propensity for metacognition, and some learners will need a great deal of explicit instruction and modeling in order to learn how to do this successfully. For many learners, merely recognizing that they are making progress toward greater independence is highly motivating." - CAST

You can dig into way MORE engagement strategies by exploring the entire graphic organizer at https://udlguidelines.cast.org. Next week, I'll dive more into multiple means of representation, so be sure to subscribe if you haven't already!

Please comment below on your favorite engagement strategies that you've used!