Our study explored three ways to deepen student engagement across grade levels and subjects. We used project-, scenario-, and simulation-based learning to demonstrate three ways of deepening student engagement with a topic or concept. Each approach demonstrated a different way, actually a different activity, a student can engagement in academic skill or content:
Engaging with Other People:
Project-Based engagement typically involves exploring a project with a small team, a group of other students. In real life, the team may be other workers, or a family or interest group.
An individual’s learning happens through the engagement with team members as they explore and execute the project. The deeper learning happened through engagement with the topic via interaction with other people.
Engaging with an AI Tutor or Mentor:
Scenario-Based engagement in our study involved exploring a topic through interaction with an AI system acting as a mentor. The virtual mentor could act as another student, a teacher, a scientist, historical figure, celebrity, or anyone who could connect the student to the content to be learned. The individual’s learning happens through the engagement with a virtual mentor who, in character, connects the student to the content in an interesting way. The deeper learning happens through engagement with a virtual mentor.
Engaging with Interacting Agents:
Simulation-Based engagement in this exploration involved learning through observation and manipulation of interacting agents. The interaction was not with a group of people or a virtual mentor; it was observing and manipulating the interactions of independently-acting agents. A good simulation allows the student to manipulate the simulation to see how it changes with changes in key elements, variables, that control the interactions.
Engaging with Interacting Agents:
Simulation-Based engagement in this exploration involved learning through observation and manipulation of interacting agents. The interaction was not with a group of people or a virtual mentor; it was observing and manipulating the interactions of independently-acting agents. A good simulation allows the student to manipulate the simulation to see how it changes with changes in key elements, variables, that control the interactions.
The agents often use very simple rules to generate complex behavior raising questions in the student’s mind. The student engages directly with the content without an intermediary group or virtual mentor. The individual’s learning happens through engagement with the content-in-motion, demonstrating the topic’s wider behavior that is otherwise hard to visualize.
Summary:
Student Engagement in each of the above cases is supported and amplified through an activity involving interaction with teammates, a virtual mentor, or interacting agents. A good teacher uses these methods when one is a good fit with the content to be learned. The creative vision of the teacher sets the stage for the magic of deeper student engagement activities.