Choice, Relevancy, and Engagement, oh my! These are crucial components to any assignments we give to students, but especially ones where we are sending them out to conduct research. Any amount of reading on these subjects will reveal the interconnectivity of the parts that create successful assignments.

A study by Skinner, Marchand, Furrer, and Kindermann (2008) reinforced the theory that teacher support from the beginning of school and on had a huge influence on how motivated and engaged students were in class content both academically and behaviorally. What does engagement look and sound like? What types of activities are involved? A great article in Edweek by Larry Ferlazzo (2014), and Edutopia articles from James (2015) and Miller (2016) combined the insight of great minds on what spurs engagement in a classroom. Several themes emerged:

Lessons are Relevant: They had purpose and meaning. Speakers with first hand experience, creating content that will be consumed in some way by real people in the community/world, and having choice in projects are ways to incorporate relevancy in any subject of study. Relevancy and choice help cut down on rote assignments that are easily reproduced from the internet or from previous students.
Purpose is Clear: Students should understand the purpose behind any activity--the ultimate goal/target. Students recognize busy work, and they will rebel against it in some way. What do we want students to learn? Purposeful planning of instruction is a key component to making sure students have a target every day. It's not enough for the instructor to know the target; the students need to be aware too. It is easy to assume students understand the intention of a lesson, but explicitly making them aware is always a good idea.
Collaboration/Conversation is Essential: We know that students love to talk. Collaboration that holds all students accountable for work is an important tool to allow them to process material. In fact, "Baylor University psychologist Melanie Sekeres, Ph.D., said that actively re-generating the information — for example, by telling someone the particulars, as opposed to simply re-reading the textbook or class notes and studying it again later — makes a big difference" (qtd in Nauert). Quick activities to incorporate into lessons include:
- Sentence Starters
- Think-Write-Pair-Share
- Line-Fold
- Socratic Seminar

Fisher, Frey and Rothenberg (2008) categorize the types of conversations that should be taking place in the classroom.

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Students are Challenged: Students should be challenged with tasks just beyond their reach. Students feel accomplished when they work through an assignment that requires them to stretch themselves a little. A safe failure-tolerating environment, strong teacher support, opportunities to collaborate and process, and differentiation are vital to the success of challenging tasks.
Students have Choice: Autonomy is vital to student success in school and beyond. Students will engage in assignments and content in which they have chosen some elements, whether it is what they are studying through the lens of the given discipline or how they are showing mastery of the content. Additionally, what might be a too-easy task for one student might prove debilitating to another. Knowing our students and giving them ability appropriate tasks builds confidence and engagement.