Faculty Spotlight:

Strategies For Meaningful Classroom Engagement 

Ryan Venturelli

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, GEOLOGY AND GEOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
This resource, created in collaboration with Mines Professor Ryan Venturelli, offers an overview of her approach to fostering classroom engagement, which includes peer-led discussions and authentic learning experiences that connect with students’ current interests and potential future careers. It features four videos of students discussing their experience in the course.
Setting the Tone
Peer-Led Discussions
Making Learning Authentic

The Silent Classroom

 As a new Assistant Professor, I have found the most intimidating and challenging situation while teaching to be the silent classroom.  This may occur when posing a question to students during lecture, setting up a think-pair-share opportunity, or when holding a discussion about a reading assignment. This silence is not necessarily a bad thing—we know that silent reflection and wait time are important aspects of teaching and learning. But still, it can be uncomfortable. When I think about my classroom, I want to cultivate a classroom that is loud, full of vibrant discussion, shared energy, and creative engagement. Jennifer H. Herman and Linda B. Nilson, in their book Creating Engaging Discussions: Strategies for “Avoiding Crickets” in any Size Classroom and Online, suggest that engaging discussions can be guided with 12 principles:

    1. Students must be prepared for discussion. 
    2. Students must feel safe to express themselves. 
    3. Students need good reasons to listen actively.
    4. Students respond well to a variety of structured discussion formats. 
    5. Students contribute as equally as the discussion structure requires.
    6. Students respond well to questions with multiple good answers.
    7. Students benefit from having time to think before contributing.
    8. Students can benefit from expressing themselves in motion and space.
    9. Students can benefit from expressing themselves graphically.
    10. Students respond well to novel stimuli, such as outside ideas or research.
    11. Students participate according to how effectively a discussion is moderated.
    12. Students must see their personal value as separate from the value of their contributions.

When designing and facilitating my 400/500 level Paleoclimate class for the first time in Spring 2024, I tried to incorporate these principles such that every piece of the class—from syllabus design to summative assessment—intentionally encouraged students to become active participants in their learning and evaluation process. Throughout this resource, I draw on these twelve principles as a framework for reflecting on my own efforts to foster student motivation and engagement. I provide a (#) to link my practices back to these twelve principles. Broadly, I break my approach into three parts:

Setting the tone for engagement by communicating my course design and creating a welcoming environment.  
Fostering student agency in discussion (through peer-led discussions) and assessment (through peer-reviewed assignments).
Making learning more authentic by mirroring real-life processes and connecting course content with student interests.

Setting The Tone

Download My Syllabus
Pre-Semester Work
Before the semester began, I took some time to design a fun syllabus with pictures, descriptions of topics, and a breakdown of my course design. I also put out a pre-course survey for students to express their level of comfort and experience with topics covered in class, prompted by the first principle of meaningful discussions that states students “must feel safe to express themselves” (#1). By gaining information about students’ feeling of preparedness for the topics we would be discussing in class, I was able to actively meet them where they were and provide a safe space for expression (#2). I have also found, through this practice, that asking students about their preparedness has been more informative than simply looking through classes they took as prerequisites. 
For my 400/500 level Paleoclimate syllabus, I included images of the glacial environments we would be learning about, paleoclimate archives that we would be exploring, and one of the ship-based platforms that samples are collected from in the field. By providing images and examples in addition to conventional pre-reading assignments, I was able to introduce students to some of the topics we discussed throughout the semester and invited them to establish a sense of familiarity with the material before getting started. Offering students with multiple ways to experience the course material gives them an opportunity to more deeply connect with what they are learning, and is considered an inclusive teaching practice (Sanger and Gleason 2020). Because the focus topic was pretty new to students in the class, I added some extra explanation about the topic and course learning objectives on the first page of my syllabus. I spent the second page introducing students to the course design, structure, how evaluation would work, and the final project. On the last page, I provided the course schedule. I found that giving students this syllabus before the course began provided them with important course-specific information prior to receiving additional resources via the required university language.
First Day Of Class Dialogue
As an icebreaker activity on the first day of class, I ask students to write their name and one word that they associate with themselves on a notecard. Students introduce themselves to the class and I take a picture of them with their card to learn their names and words. This helps me get to know the students’ names and personalities and provides them an outlet to express themselves as people (#2). Next, the students and I went through our syllabus together to provide insight into the variety of formats through which they would be learning material (#3), requirements for discussion leadership and participation (#1 and #4), and introduce how the class would be structured around outside ideas, research, and a proposal writing assessment (#11). In this discussion, I also offer students some context for why assignments have the point value they have, what I hope they will gain from each assessment, and a general overview of my philosophy. In doing this, students get to peak behind the curtain of the course design, which I have found helps them to tailor their expectations and come to class prepared (#1).

“I have found that investing this time in the beginning helps to set the expectations of the course and makes students much more comfortable with what is expected of them.”

First Few Weeks
Prior to asking students to lead a discussion, I offered a few lectures that provided the background and basic information students need to know about the field to be able to gain a deeper understanding. Spending the first four weeks of class this way prepared students for discussions later in the semesters (#1) by giving them time to experience and reflect on what a literature discussion could look like prior to facilitating their own discussion (#7). It also helped us to build a rapport so that students felt safe and comfortable expressing themselves when they were to be evaluated on their participation (#2).

Since a huge piece of this class was based around reading and discussing scientific literature, I asked students to go through these slides to learn a bit about how reading scientific papers might be different than reading a book chapter for their first assignment. I paired this with a reflective assignment which asked students to think about the process of reading scientific literature and how it may be different to their previous reading experiences in other courses. Through this reading reflection, I hoped that students would begin to develop their metacognitive thinking around science-based literature.

Though taking the time to lay the framework for the semester means that we cannot jump right into course material, I have found that investing this time in the beginning helps to set the expectations of the course and makes students much more comfortable with what is expected of them. I also found that through doing this, I was met with less resistance to material, assignments, and overall work as it came up throughout the semester. It also helped us co-create a welcoming environment where we could trust each other and share in the experience of learning together.

Peer-Led Discussion

“I think leading the discussion made me much better at reading and analyzing the papers. Before leading, I found I would kind of passively read them and after I actually understood what was going on.” —Student

Basic structure
After I modeled what an effective literature discussion might look like, students were asked to lead paper discussions for their peers every Thursday. Each paper discussion session had multiple discussion “leaders” who would give a short summary of the paper, and students would discuss what they learned and how it relates to the Tuesday lecture (or lectures from earlier in the course).

When pairing discussion leaders, I was mindful of the opportunity for peer-to-peer mentorship in the classroom. Each undergraduate student discussion leader was paired with another undergraduate student so that they could tackle discussion leadership together. Where possible, I also paired the undergraduate students with a graduate student so they could have an opportunity to learn from someone with a bit more experience than them. This practice facilitated great interactions between students at the undergraduate and graduate level that might not have happened without leadership partners. 

Each discussion leader was given an opportunity to be creative with the discussion format (#10), which led to multiple forms of engagement. This allowed discussion participants to demonstrate proficiency with the material in various ways (#5). I highlighted to students that by reading scientific papers and synthesizing the most cutting-edge information in a field, we are able to gain an understanding of science that has not yet made it in to text books. For all discussions. I highlighted the importance of understanding what was done, why it was done, and how the study advanced our understanding (#3). Students were also provided a pre-discussion assignment with adequate time to think about the material before having to contribute (#7).  By emphasizing these aspects of what we are reading, I hoped to encourage students to think about how they might design a study to address a question that they are interested in, tying directly into the summative assessment for the class, which was to write an original research proposal.
Assessing Participation and Discussion
Since 30% of the student’s grade came from participation and discussion, we spent quite a lot of time in the first few classes discussing rubrics (Editable format linked here). As noted by Herman & Nilson’s principles of classroom discussions, students contribute as equally as the discussion structure requires, need good reasons to listen actively, and must feel safe to express themselves. My intention in providing context for discussion participation rubrics, as well as an opportunity to provide feedback, was to meet these principles. On the first day of class I presented draft rubrics and explained the point breakdown of participation into two categories: attendance and participation.
I explained that everyone has bad days, and that just by showing up, students could still earn points by soaking up knowledge from the discussion. By listening to their peers (#3) and building on another student’s thought or agreeing with discussion that was happening, students could earn partial points. I also explained that, in order to earn full points, students must speak up in class with questions or statements that indicated they read the paper.

As an assignment after the first week of class, I opened an anonymous poll on Canvas for students to submit feedback to modify the rubric (see questions in the box to the right). In doing this, I hoped that students would buy in to the experience if they were given agency in how they would be evaluated (#2, #5, #12). During the second week of class, we went through the feedback together and made adjustments to the rubrics. After the first two discussions in class (Week 6), I offered students a second opportunity to provide feedback on the rubrics. In hindsight, I think it would have been good to do a weekly check in about rubrics, discussions, and grading, but it was hard to balance with everything else going on in the class.

Download My Peer-Led Discussion Rubrics
Questions posed to students in our rubric feedback survey:

Do you feel that the proposed rubric is a fair assessment of your participation?
How would you adjust the rubric to better assess your participation?
How would you change the point value assignments?

Two principles of creating engaging discussions are that students must be prepared for the discussion (#1) and benefit from having time to think before they have to provide input (#7) . I wanted to encourage students to prepare ahead of class with a low-stakes assignment that both provided them with some incentive to read the papers thoroughly ahead of class and didn’t require too much additional work. In preparation for paper discussions, students submitted a canvas assignment each week in which they summarized what they read using the following the questions: 

What are the overarching questions, methods, or tools presented in this paper?

What is the hypothesis being tested?

What are the major findings of the paper?

My attempts to be mindful when pairing discussion leaders, preparing students for discussion through regular literature summaries, and including students’ perspectives in how they would be evaluated collectively seemed to produce engaging discussions about the literature each week. Students commented about how much they enjoyed learning from one another and the varied format, rather than just passively listening to lectures from me all semester. 

Making Learning Authentic

Research Proposal and Mock Panel
Stein, Isaacs, and Andrews (2004) define authentic learning activities as those which are “are either carried out in real-world contexts, or have high transfer to a real-world setting. Authentic learning activities should have both personal and cultural relevance.”

In an effort to foster this “authenticity”—and so that students could feel a greater sense of value in their work (#12) —I designed the final summative assessment to mirror the process of an National Science Foundation (NSF)-style research proposal (two pages for 400-level students; five pages for 500-level students) and peer review panel.

The project was broken into three parts:

    1. Writing a research proposal
    2. Reviewing proposals of peers
    3. Participating in a mock panel to decide which proposals would be funded
Students who were awarded funding for their proposals, all proudly wearing their crowns!

In the requirements for this proposal, students needed to express the hypothesis they proposed to test, the clear methods they would use to test their hypothesis, and how their findings would contribute to our broader understanding of paleoclimate. I found that because I had already asked students to analyze these pieces in other papers as part of our class readings and peer-led discussions, they were better prepared (#1) to include these pieces in their own research proposals.

For the review and panel portion of the assignment, students each wrote reviews and rated three proposals written by their peers. To do this, they followed the same double-blind format used by the National Science Foundation. Because students had already practiced the skill of reviewing the work of discussion leaders throughout the term, they were well-prepared to evaluate proposals in a professional and critical manner at the end of the semester. On panel review day, students were randomly assigned to four groups in which they ranked the proposals they reviewed. Finally, all of the groups came together to make a collective recommendation about which proposals would be funded with the available budget. During the panel, I made crowns for the students who were funded to wear around as a reward. Overall, I was blown away by the quality and constructive nature of the student reviews for the proposal. Their ability to critically evaluate paleoclimate work made me extremely proud of what they all learned throughout the semester.

Memes and Popular Culture
Another way I tried to add authenticity to our course learning experiences was to include “fun”—or, novel, visual, and creative—ways for students to demonstrate their learning (#9 and #10) in which they could connect what we were learning with their own lives and interests outside of the classroom.

I was sure to place the mock panel a couple of weeks before finals so that we would have time at the end of the semester to finish up without conflicting deadlines with other classes. This scheduling allowed me to include one last “fun” assignment for students to submit a meme about something they learned during the semester. We used this as an opportunity for students to review course material, express their creativity, and showcase what they learned. On the last day of class, I also made a Paleoclimate Wrapped slideshow based on the annual “Spotify Wrapped”  and gave students a chance to vote for the best memes. 

Students submitted memes about every single lecture and paper discussion of the semester, with topics ranging from ocean circulation to ice core formation. It was really exciting to see which topics landed with them, and to watch them express their learning in a creative way. Both the “Spotify Wrapped” presentation and voting for the best meme submission provided an opportunity for us to celebrate all we had learned throughout the semester and the community that we built together in the classroom.

Download My Meme Prompt with Examples
Download My Spotify Wrapped Template
My approach to fostering classroom engagement included establishing a welcoming, inviting environment early on in the semester, providing students with more agency over their learning, structuring peer mentorship and leadership in discussion, and staging assessments that felt meaningful and authentic to students. I really enjoyed teaching my Paleoclimate class in the Spring, as it is a topic that I am excited and passionate about. More than that, I enjoyed learning from the students who took the class–what works for them, what makes them feel motivated, and what helps them to learn in the most productive ways. My hope is that after reading through my approaches and reflections on teaching Paleoclimate, you may be inspired to find new ways to build community and foster meaningful engagement in your classrooms!