Students in John G Diefenbaker High School "Tell Them From Me " about Student Engagement (2014-15)

Student engagement is "a disposition towards learning, working with others, and functioning in a social institution".1 It includes students ' sense of belonging at school, the extent to which they value schooling outcomes, and their psychological investment in learning. Measures of these aspects of engagement can be classified as social engagement, institutional engagement, and intellectual engagement. Engagement and learning go hand-in-hand: engagement begets learning and learning begets engagement. This dynamic and interactive process begins early- during the primary grades or even earlier- and continues through to adulthood. Student engagement needs to be considered an important schooling outcome in its own right, sitting alongside academic achievement as a key measure of student success. Key Findings from the Research A study conducted by the Canadian Education Association, in collaboration with Galileo Educational Network and The Learning Bar, found that all three types of engagement markedly decline as students progress through middle and secondary school. For example, in Grade 6 about 60 % of students were considered to be intellectually engaged, but by Grade 9 the percentage was about 30%.2 Students who are intellectually engaged are more likely to feel confident in their skills and challenged in their classes. Students who lack confidence in their skills are more than one-and-a-half times a