Given the importance of cognitive engagement to learning, how prevalent is it in schools? Authors John V. Antonetti and James R. Garver (2015) conducted a study based on 17,124 classroom visits. They conclude that a majority of the classrooms (87 percent) emphasize low-level thinking focused on knowledge and comprehension, 9 percent of classrooms require students to apply or analyze, and 4 percent of classrooms promote synthesis and evaluation. As part of this study, they define and measure a classroom’s level of engagement based on three criteria: (1) off-task classrooms had a significant number of students not participating in classroom tasks, (2) on-task classrooms had students compliantly following the teacher’s expectations in an orderly classroom, and (3) engaged classrooms were cognitively engaged (Antonetti & Garver, 2015). Table 1.2 summarizes these results. Are you surprised?
Table 1.2: Cross Tabulation Between Engagement Level and Thinking Level
Source: Antonetti & Garver, 2015, p. 81.
When measuring cognitive engagement, it is important to focus on student behaviors rather than teacher behaviors. This is where we see the relationship emerge between critical thinking and cognitive engagement. Notice how, when thinking levels shift from low to middle there is a 27 percent increase in engaged learning followed with a 13 percent increase when instruction moves from middle-to-high levels of thinking. Antonetti and Garver (2015) caution, “Attempts to improve student engagement without concurrent efforts to raise the thinking levels of student work can lead to learners enthusiastically participating in low-level tasks” (p. 30).
We find supporting evidence for this conclusion from a National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study, which examines fifth-grade classroom observations (Pianta, Belsky, Houts, & Morrison, 2007). It finds 58 percent of students’ time is spent on learning basic skills, with less than 13 percent on higher-level learning involving analysis and inference. Less than 5 percent of instructional time involves collaborative work, and less than 1 percent of students are highly engaged. It concludes students are either compliant or defiant, but few are truly engaged (Pianta et al., 2007).
To move students toward engagement with a strong critical-thinking component, Marzano and Toth (2014) analyzed more than two million classroom observations, finding the highest level of thinking tasks include hypothesis generation and testing and that these are apparent in less than 6 percent of instructional lessons. Marzano and Toth (2014) assert that for students to be successful on revised assessments and in college and careers, they must be able to analyze and synthesize. To do this, they posit that students need opportunities to take knowledge and apply it in authentic situations.
As you reflect on the data on the proliferation of classrooms with low cognitive engagement, ask yourself: “Do you see parallels to this data in your classroom or school district? What percentage of your instruction focuses on higher-level thinking?” If there is room to improve, that’s OK. It’s common for teachers to struggle with incorporating critical thinking. Fortunately, there are a few practical ideas that can support teachers in this transition.
Antonetti and Garver (2015) identify the following questions that highlight eight characteristics that ensure high-level cognitive engagement.
1. Does the activity, strategy, task, or idea allow for the student to personalize his or her response? Can they bring their life experiences into the activity and make it their own?
2. Are there clear and modeled expectations?
3. Is there a sense of audience above and beyond the teacher and the test? Does the activity have value to someone else?
4. Is there social interaction? Do students have an opportunity to talk about the learning and interact?
5. Is there a culture of emotional safety? Are mistakes valued because they are an opportunity to learn?
6. Do students have opportunities to choose within the activity?
7. Is it an authentic activity? This doesn’t mean it always must connect directly to the student’s world, but it should connect to reality.
8. Is the task new and novel? If kids are bored, is it hard to see engagement?
In their research, Antonetti and Garver (2015) determine that if three of the eight characteristics are present in a classroom, students demonstrate sustained cognitive engagement between 84 and 86 percent of the time. However, when two characteristics are present in classrooms, engagement levels drop to 16 percent of the time and further drop to less than 4 percent when only one characteristic is present.
Critical-thinking skills enable students to be successful in careers and in life, and classrooms offer tremendous power and opportunity to team critical thinking with student engagement. Such instruction can be challenging, while also being interesting and appealing to students. Given the research-backed importance of increasing levels of cognitive engagement, and to truly understand the fifty strategies in this book that accomplish this, it’s important to examine the full scope of thinking as defined in Bloom’s taxonomy revised (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). This is the purpose of the next chapter.
Discussion Questions
As you reflect on this chapter, consider the following five questions.
1. Review table 1.1 (page 5). Is your classroom instruction more focused on transmission or thinking? How can you further evolve your practices to make yours an increasingly thinking-based classroom?
2. How do you define critical thinking? What characteristics do you most value?
3. What evidence of critical thinking do you see in your classroom? How might you create more opportunities for it?
4. When you see your students demonstrating cognitive engagement, what does it look like? What evidence do you have that your students are engaged?
5. When you actively engage your students in learning, are they working at lower or higher levels of thinking? How can you shift more of this engagement toward higher levels?
Take Action
Use the following three activities to put this chapter’s concepts to work in your own classroom.
1. Create a survey with the fifteen Habits of Mind (Swartz et al., 2008) related to critical thinking (see page 6). Ask your students to identify which habits they demonstrate on a routine basis, and then have them select a few habits they need to enhance. Using this information, determine some ways you can help them strengthen those habits.
2. Select an activity or assignment you use with your students and review it with the eight important characteristics of cognitive engagement listed in the Cognitive Engagement section (page 7). Evaluate whether the activity or assignment meets each characteristic. Identify ways to improve the assignment.
3. Work with a colleague and observe each other’s classroom. Similar to Antonetti and Garver’s (2015) research, chart the level of engagement