Educators can leverage these four cornerstones to promote a more equitable set of learning outcomes for their learners. Companies that design products for students can also use them to ensure their programs are more inclusive.

Implementing these components will result in increased student success/retention, saves time for educators, and makes students feel more connected with the content they’re learning.

Student Engagement

Student engagement is an increasingly popular term in education, most likely due to research that shows certain intellectual, emotional, behavioral, and physical factors promote or hinder learning. However, the definition of student engagement is still open to interpretation and there are many ways in which it could be measured.

For example, some studies use student engagement as a way to describe students’ involvement in extracurricular activities, whereas others define it as more of a psychological investment that encompasses a wide variety of behaviors and actions. Moreover, some researchers argue that a more analytical distinction is to analyze three broad types of student engagement: engagement to form individual understanding; engagement to form curricula; and engagement to form communities. This distinction allows us to see how different kinds of educational interventions might bolster student engagement in different ways.

Active Learning

Students who use learner-centered pedagogies like active learning have a more robust understanding of course content. But, implementing these strategies requires more preparation on the part of instructors.

These approaches often require less lecturing time, and students participate in activities centered around writing, talking, and problem solving. They also collaborate with one another, developing the skills that are crucial in today’s team-oriented workplaces.

Examples of these strategies include think-pair-share, wherein students listen to a lecture without taking notes, then share their thoughts with others in small groups before sharing with the class. Incorporating these types of assignments can help students see their progress and improve over time. They can be facilitated by instructors or self-guided through peer-based discussions and minute papers. In addition to these student-centered methods, feedback loops are essential.

Feedback Loops

Feedback loops are essential to gaining insight into customers' needs and perceptions. These iterative processes enable businesses to make adjustments and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

For example, if a student does not understand a certain educational concept during a lesson, teachers can use appropriate pedagogy to help them. This allows students to follow their desired learning pace and enables them to understand complex educational concepts.

For instance, liberationist pedagogy is an approach to teaching developed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. This method puts student voice at the centre and aims to create classrooms that are democratic in culture. It places value on the teacher being positioned as a learner and encourages cooperation and teamwork. This can be done in a number of ways including using problem prompts, Classroom Assessment Techniques and Think-Pair-Share activities.

Collaborative Methods

Using collaborative learning methods, students work together in groups to discuss topics and find solutions to problems. This learning style follows the social-constructivist belief that knowledge is co-created by all members of a group. It also helps pupils with low prior attainment engage in learning activities and address misconceptions through discussion with their peers.

Group work can help students develop a variety of important skills that are essential to workplace readiness. For example, they learn how to communicate with people from different backgrounds, cultures and educational levels.

When designing group learning sessions, it is important to set clear goals and monitor the groups to ensure they are collaborating effectively. Overemphasizing competition between teams can distract learners from the learning experience and make it more difficult for them to achieve a meaningful outcome.

Differentiated Instruction

Effective teachers recognize that each student comes to class with unique academic needs, culture, language, personality and learning styles. This understanding leads them to adjust or differentiate their teaching style. Differentiation is not individualized instruction, but it does involve providing students with a variety of ways to understand content and engage in class.

Some of the most common ways instructors differentiate their instruction include modifying the content, process and learning environment. For example, some students may benefit from hearing a lecture in class while others will do better listening to a video or a podcast.

Differentiation also includes providing students with a range of project-based learning activities that connect with their interests. This enables them to explore their own questions and passions, a key ingredient in motivation.