EMPOWER EFFECTIVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

Engagement, Belonging, and Communication were the top three strategies discovered to support student retention, success, and well-being from recent research. “Positive engagement is central to academic success” (Bowden, Tickle, & Naumann, 2021). Student engagement incorporates curiosity, interest, optimism, passion, and motivation for progress with Teacherstudent relationships, peer-support, and whole-of-school assistance to contribute to lifelong learning and student success (Zepke & Leach, 2010).

Teachers influence students with contributions to the academic environment (Bowden, 2013).

Bowden’s research collates student feedback suggesting some trainers fail to create a supportive learning environment leaving students feeling disconnected and wanting to drop out because learning suffers “when students are bored, dispassionate, disaffected, or disengaged” (Glossary of Education Reform, 2016).

Student retention is directly linked to the quality of teaching (George, McEwan, & Tarr, 2021). Annually, around one-third of Australian tertiary students fail to complete their studies (Norton & Cherastidtham, 2018), with the risk trifecta being online, part-time, and mature age students. Completion rates are twenty percent fewer for external/online students (O’Keeffe, 2013). As educators in Vocational Training, we must avoid ‘talk-fests’ when students are needing hands-on training. It is within teachers’ capabilities to assist in mitigating attrition and support student retention for both online and faceto-face classes. The teacher-student relationship is critical (Bowden, 2013), and educators must incorporate multiple strategies, connecting with students using welcoming activities, videos, and discussions and providing prompt feedback on contributions and tasks for students to feel assured that the lecturer is both present and supportive (Pathify, n.d.).

Although teaching strategies include visual imagery, questioning, quizzes, quality slideshows, and short videos, research highlights the need for more well-being approaches over pragmatic teaching methods, inferring that a) teachers have a role to play in all strategies identified, b) affective strategies have more importance than resourcing alone, and c) most, if not all strategies, are interconnected.

Support includes practical, social, and emotional support in whole-ofschool contexts, including staff and peer services, initiatives, and technical support, which will take effort and persistence (Muir et al., 2019). Stone (2019) recommends teachers need training and resourcing to create a supportive, encouraging, and professional presence when teaching while linking industry realities, casestudies, role-plays, and employability skills, supporting students toward lifelong learning techniques, assisting job-readiness, transferable skills, and intrinsic motivation toward success (Stone, 2016).

Developing a Sense of Belonging is critical, affecting students’ psychological functioning, academic outcomes, motivation, and well-being resulting in greater engagement in study and retention (Osborne, Loveder & Knight, 2019). Educators can get involved, encouraging opportunities for peer interactions and constructing common-interest communities (CAST, 2018) because “a strong teacherpresence provides students with a sense of belonging” (Stone, 2019).

Enhanced communication between students, staff and faculty is crucial. When educators know their students better, they’re better able to develop appropriate support and effective communication, whether formal or informal, including synchronous and asynchronous discussion forums, group assignments, blogs, wikis, emails, quizzes, social media, webinars, audio, and video content (Muir et al., 2019). “Frequent and personalised communication helps students to feel connected to staff” (Pathify, n.d.).

Planning to foster Engagement, Belonging, and Communication will contribute to greater students’ selfworth, support retention and industryreadiness. What meaningful activities has this article reminded you of as you seek to develop and grow connections with your students?

Reference Links

John Blake’s experience spans Hospitality, EAL, Foundation Skills, and Training & Education across 20 countries using creative delivery approaches and contextualised assessments to support, engage and enable learners. John is passionate about the opportunity to inspire teachers and trainers to excel and encourage learners in shaping the future workforce.

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