Enhancing Student Engagement in a Sustainability …
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their concerns and showed interest in doing in-depth study about it. Lastly 9% of the
students responded they have never thought about it.
5 Teacher’s Reflections on Student Engagement
This section provides the teacher’s reflection on student engagement in the sustainability course, based on the response from the surveyed students. This reflection
attempts to reach congruence between what the teacher values and what students
report on in terms of their activities, with a view to enhance student engagement in
the classroom.
Although the number of students in the 2017 class that participated in the surveys
was much lower than for the 2016 class, and individuals may vary greatly in terms
of experience, interests and identity, some results of the survey (e.g., awareness
of historical events) have shown that two groups of students share quite similar
background and perceptions. No doubt, this has lessened the limitations of the sample
size to some extent. In addition, the self-reporting surveys on student engagement
are complemented with in-class observations and discussions, as well as some afterclass contact sessions. The rest of this section deals with some reflections on student
engagement in class and lessons that can be learnt from this.
5.1 Improving Student Engagement in the Classroom
Without knowing the students’ perceptions and considering their interests, it is difficult to have an engaged class. Although students choose this optional course out
of their free will, many factors determine their choice, including personal curiosity,
usefulness, class time, the pass rate, academic and credit requirements as well as the
perception and influence of others. The surveys conducted in two consecutive years,
2016 and 2017, indicated that students have diversified interests in sustainability
topics and that they expect to learn something that could be useful for their specialty
course study. Given the interdisciplinary and complex nature of sustainability topics,
it is not realistic to expect to capture the interest of all students in all topics, and to
have all students authentically engaged throughout the class. Continued pedagogical
research on teaching and learning can help with the identification of more “focused”
topics that are tailored to the curiosity of students.
Students are more engaged in the classroom when they already have some knowledge of the selected topics. Some pre-class reading by students are necessary and
indispensable. From the feedback provided by students about their course learning
experience, it became clear that they did not have the time to read the materials as
requested by the teacher. They explained that their time was occupied by specialty
course learning and school activities. Nevertheless, for phenomena of which students
have practical experience, as income inequality, air pollution and urbanization, it is
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their concerns and showed interest in doing in-depth study about it. Lastly 9% of the
students responded they have never thought about it.
5 Teacher’s Reflections on Student Engagement
This section provides the teacher’s reflection on student engagement in the sustainability course, based on the response from the surveyed students. This reflection
attempts to reach congruence between what the teacher values and what students
report on in terms of their activities, with a view to enhance student engagement in
the classroom.
Although the number of students in the 2017 class that participated in the surveys
was much lower than for the 2016 class, and individuals may vary greatly in terms
of experience, interests and identity, some results of the survey (e.g., awareness
of historical events) have shown that two groups of students share quite similar
background and perceptions. No doubt, this has lessened the limitations of the sample
size to some extent. In addition, the self-reporting surveys on student engagement
are complemented with in-class observations and discussions, as well as some afterclass contact sessions. The rest of this section deals with some reflections on student
engagement in class and lessons that can be learnt from this.
5.1 Improving Student Engagement in the Classroom
Without knowing the students’ perceptions and considering their interests, it is difficult to have an engaged class. Although students choose this optional course out
of their free will, many factors determine their choice, including personal curiosity,
usefulness, class time, the pass rate, academic and credit requirements as well as the
perception and influence of others. The surveys conducted in two consecutive years,
2016 and 2017, indicated that students have diversified interests in sustainability
topics and that they expect to learn something that could be useful for their specialty
course study. Given the interdisciplinary and complex nature of sustainability topics,
it is not realistic to expect to capture the interest of all students in all topics, and to
have all students authentically engaged throughout the class. Continued pedagogical
research on teaching and learning can help with the identification of more “focused”
topics that are tailored to the curiosity of students.
Students are more engaged in the classroom when they already have some knowledge of the selected topics. Some pre-class reading by students are necessary and
indispensable. From the feedback provided by students about their course learning
experience, it became clear that they did not have the time to read the materials as
requested by the teacher. They explained that their time was occupied by specialty
course learning and school activities. Nevertheless, for phenomena of which students
have practical experience, as income inequality, air pollution and urbanization, it is