Student Engagement: What do we know and what should we do?

school culture if students understand what is going on, and are given some significant
role in helping to design and bring about the desired culture change” (p. 12). Projects like
Imagine a School… and Design for Learning and What did you do in school today?
already impact definitions and measures of student engagement in the literature, but more
clarification and discussion is required before we can fully understand this complicated,
evolving construct that seems to show such promise for creating the educational
experiences and outcomes students require to be successfully engaged.
Perhaps in addition to student voice, we should add “parent” voice. We noted there was
little to no reference to the role parents can play to increase student engagement to
classroom learning, with the exception that most research studies on engagement state
that student background might impact their levels of engagement. Certainly other
research on socio-economic factors, education levels of parents, and general attitude
about education in the home have been found to impact student’s levels of engagement in
school. Perhaps this omission of parental voice suggests that researchers believe parents
are beyond the scope or realm of influence for teachers and educators.
If we do not expand our research and thinking about student engagement, we fall victim
to traditional views that education is something that happens only in school; and, until we
modify or eradicate this limited view of how children learn, most of our work in the area
of student engagement will fall short. If we have learned nothing else from our review of
research literature, it is that learning involves what happens in learners’ entire lives – not
just school, and not just home – everywhere. This message seems central to our emerging
insights about what will engage our children in learning.
Student Engagement: What do we know and what should we do? 52