Scott Van Beck, Executive Director of Houston A+ Challenge, on Student Engagement

Scott Van Beck, executive director of Houston A+ Challenge, knows a thing or two about student engagement—enough to say, "Student engagement is the holy grail.  We’ve got to figure this out."

As a regional superintendent of Houston ISD’s West Region, Van Beck and his executive staff visited campuses to collect data on school performance using a unique protocol titled, "ARE we there yet?"  Van Beck, his team, and school personnel would visit three classrooms to assess performance in three areas: A-Alignment, R-Rigor, and E-Engagement.  After almost 1,000 classroom visits over three years for this purpose, the findings were clear and obvious.  "Even in high scoring classrooms with what would be considered highly effective teachers, we found that engagement scores were usually the lowest. In fact, they were usually 50% of the alignment scores," Van Beck concludes.

The data also showed that elementary teachers generally had higher scores in engagement than secondary teachers did.  Van Beck suggests that one of the reasons for this disparity has to do with the  issue of skills versus content.  "Elementary schools tend to spend more time building skills," says Van Beck, "whereas secondary schools expect kids to know the 'how' as opposed to the 'what.'" 

At Houston A+ Challenge, Van Beck keeps coming back to a key finding from this earlier work: "with student engagement, you have to begin with the learner in mind. You can't look at content or teaching practice—you must focus on learners' needs and interests, and that's tough in an environment of accountability based on standardized tests.  Accountability is built around curriculum and teacher practice, not around learners’ behaviors and needs."

For Van Beck, then, the future of student engagement depends on the transformation of school design.  "School bureaucracies will have to get aggressive in designing schools to include technology and relevant material that directly impacts a child's life."  Pausing a second after he says this, he pulls out his Blackberry and continues, "See, students are learning in spite of us.  They’re pulling out these tools and they are playing games and learning without us.  I think my kids learn more about history from the game Band of Brothers than they do from me."  The new world of student engagement is teaching beyond the classroom with tools that extend well beyond the city and well beyond the school bell.

But the system has to adjust to engage the learner.  "If I can teach through a smart phone or a gaming system," Van Beck says, "that changes the whole schematic of school—property, personnel, books, they all change. The question then is, 'Are we willing to give up all of this for better learning?'  That’s going to be the challenge for us."