E2 personal engagement

As I observed E2 yesterday, I kept an eye toward the learner's moments of engagement and being personally invested in their work. What I observed was a trend of teachers being more engaged when they were allowed to put their own stamp of creativity into the activity.

Observed examples of increased teacher engagement include:
8/6 - Teachers partake in ET. While the teachers are required to work within the ET guidelines and about the externally provided topic, there is significant leeway for the teachers to be creative and lead the ET in the direction of their choosing. One teacher (Nicole) largely took charge of coordinating the groups movement from square to square, but the entire group put their creative stamp on the physical motions that they would use to represent different types of energy. Some got very into their motions and would continue to make them for extended periods of what could be considered "downtime". In the video clip, Todd is a good example of continuing to make exaggerated energy motions.

8/7 - The teachers enjoyed taking a basic physics problem (pushing a box across the floor at a constant velocity) and putting their personal stamp of creativity on it. The teachers decided that it was McKayla (from the olympics and a previous ET) that was pushing the box. Most groups then would refer to F(McKayla) instead of F(hand) or F(person). This small details that the teachers controlled appeared to allow them additional buying and engagement. The seemed to like saying the name McKayla, bringing it up when possible. This may have been simply a way to demonstrate some amount of control of the classroom environment.

8/7 - Similarly to the McKayla instance, when talking about a fictional scenario with another planet touching earth, the teachers named other planet Hoth (from Starwars). When instances of the second planet arose, teachers appeared to be quite diligent about calling it Hoth (perhaps asserting their control of the environment). In this discussion the teachers seemed somewhat engaged and excited. This could also be because the entire topic being discussed was not planned by the instructor and had been a teacher driven topic. It also had great quotes such as, "If I'm earth and I'm wearing crocs, would I still feel Hoth pushing on me?" -SV.

8/7 - As teacher focus and interest wained near the end of the day, they started creating their own conversations and activities to keep themselves engaged. Examples of these include, conversations about their school (which naturally engage the teacher's identities more) and physical activities, such as creating a tower of pens.

Observed examples of decreased teacher engagement include:

8/7 - When transitioning into the unit on forces, the teachers were asked to create a picture of the forces for the box being pushed across the floor. The group of 4 that I was observing went from full teacher participation down to a single teacher participating. The one teacher who worked on the assignment told the group that while the instructor hadn't directly asked for it, they wanted a free body diagram. At this point she said she knew how to do it and the rest of the group disengaged. I argue that the group changed their position from learners engaged in creating knowledge, to knowers engaged in regurgitating information. They were also, unintentionally, disempowered. No longer did they value their own thought process, they were engaged in the game of doing school. Saying the right thing at the right time to pass the assignment. I'm not 100% sure about why this transition happened when they moved onto forces. Perhaps because of their training the first year, the teachers feel sufficiently empowered to meaningfully engage in discussion of energy but forces feel more foreign and their not yet comfortable investing themselves as fully in a topic they might "fail" at.