Supporting and Measuring Student Engagement in a Technology-Based Social Learning Environment

• In Event: 28.057 - Advanced Technologies for Learning Paper Session

Abstract

In order to address the persisting achievement gap (NAEP, 2015), educators need to examine how to better prepare and engage minority and immigrant students in science. Cognitive engagement has been identified as an important factor in students’ science achievement. The current study used the ICAP framework to identify the different cognitive engagement behaviors observed while students participated in an online social learning environment (SLE). The research questions are: 1) How does participating in SLE activities affect engagement for racial minority and immigrant middle school students? and, 2) What types of prompts elicit higher engagement within the SLE? Preliminary results found that science-focused, prompts elicited higher levels of cognitive engagement, but further analyses may give us more insight.

Authors

• Tayler Loiselle, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Keisha Varma, University of Minnesota