The Relationships Between Student Engagement and Multimedia Use

Parsons, J., & Taylor, L. (2011). Improving Student Engagement. Current Issues In Education, 14(1),

Student engagement is a critical aspect to successful learning in the classroom. With the increased use of technology and multimedia tools, teachers have the ability to increase the amount of student engagement and participation by using these tools. I read an article titled “Improving Student Engagement,” by Leah Taylor and Jim Parsons. The basis of the article is why student engagement is important in education, and how technology and multimedia tools can help to improve student engagement.

In the article, Parsons and Taylor describe those who are not actively learning as “students,” and those who are actively learning as “engaged learners.” When a teacher is achieving an engaging learning style in the classroom, this increases a student’s ability to learn the material. The article states that overtime, teachers have needed to change their teaching styles in the classroom to actively engage students, not only to develop a deeper understanding, but also to manage behaviors in the classroom. Parsons and Taylor explained that measuring student engagement is an important tool in the classroom. Teachers used to measure achievement only based on grades and class attendance records. Nowadays, student engagement can be measured by how interested and focused students are in a lesson.

This brings us to technology and multimedia use in the classroom. Parsons and Taylor quickly brought to the reader’s attention the different engagement techniques that students learn these days. The article states that students are continually engaged with technology throughout the day, whether it is in the classroom or on their own. If teachers do not change their teaching style to meet the learner’s needs, then we as teachers are not helping our students to grow and develop their own learning style. Students have different needs and goals within their learning preferences than students had only twenty years ago. The article explains that teachers have the opportunity to mold how students learn. Many teachers believe that having the ability to use multimedia and technology in the classroom will relate to students and create lifelong learners.

I would encourage teachers to continue developing lessons that will engage students. If that means creating lessons that use multimedia in the classroom, then teachers should apply this to their lesson plans. Students will enjoy learning through multimedia tools because they are comfortable using these tools. I will continue to reflect upon my teaching style and develop more lessons that will engage students more with the use of multimedia in the classroom.