Outrageous Student Engagement

Teaching Content Outrageously: How to Captivate All Students and Accelerate Learning
By Stanley Pogrow
Jossey-Bass (2009)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Stein, NBCT
Special Education Teacher (NY)
Teacher Leaders Network

I was in my third year of college as a psychology major. The first day of the spring semester began and I walked into my sociology 101 class. There were two students who were even earlier than I was. One student was reading and the other sat slouching in his seat with his eyes closed. After a few minutes the classroom filled up. Class was to begin—but where was the professor?

After about five minutes the murmurs became loud complaints from students who said, “Let’s just go—this is crazy.” I sat quietly, reading and occasionally looking up to observe. I noticed the student who was slouching at his seat was still slouching, but keenly looking around the room. He seemed to be interested in the obvious discontent of students who did not want to wait. He only grunted when approached by another student who said, “We should just leave.” After about 15 minutes of waiting a few students walked out. Once they left, the sloucher swiftly stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. He introduced himself as the professor for this class.

Most students just stared in disbelief. He apologized for putting us through that, and briefly explained his reasoning for beginning a class in this manner. After all, this was a class about human behavior within societies. It left quite an impression on many of us, encouraging us to really reflect on our personal responses and behaviors. Stanley Pogrow, author of Teaching Content Outrageously, would describe this as an outrageous lesson.

  Pogrow, a professor of Educational Leadership at San Francisco State University, clearly places value on the perspective of students when teaching content area material. He is known for developing the HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) Program for accelerating the learning of under-performing students. His book is all about attempting to engage students at the onset of a lesson as a way to guide their attention and deepen understandings of the content and lesson objectives.

The book is divided into eight chapters, with appendices that provide further resources. Each chapter concludes with a brief summary of some key points.

Pogrow believes that a great way to engage learners is to employ dramatic techniques as an instruction tool. He states:

Dramatizing content instruction has tremendous potential for teaching students who have not been successful learners or are intimidated by a particular subject or type of content, because it taps into their deeply held emotions and beliefs, their imagination…

Some examples of the use of dramatic technique include:

• Expressive Microbursts (the teacher exaggerates the tone of voice or facial expression)

• Changing Persona with Humor and Strangeness (this involves taking the expressive microburst a step further to create a shift in one’s persona)

• Create a Make-Believe Context and Scenario via Role Playing and Simulations (I believe my college professor would fall into this category when he changed his role as professor to student.)

Pogrow says that an "outrageous" lesson plan incorporates the following components:

• The element of surprise at the onset to “hook” the learners
• A storyline or scenario with a dilemma, fantasy, and humor
• Disguises and props (both costume and voice) as the teacher depicts characters
• A setting that incorporates as many media and senses as appropriate
• Eliciting emotional responses from the students
• Transition to the learning activity
• Debriefing with the students to review the content and the lesson objective.

Pogrow feels that introducing some lessons (definitely not all) in an unconventional manner helps to develop a stronger student-teacher relationship, as students become comfortable enough to participate and therefore learn. Pogrow also contends that incorporating dramatic technique helps to maintain discipline.

As a special education teacher, I can connect my own practice to some of what the author is saying. I often insert humor and use my voice as a means to engage students in the learning process. It's effective. As I use such techniques with students who have learning disabilities, they display a sense of comfort and relaxed emotional stance that adds to their level of attention, participation, and understanding.

As I read through the book, I felt as though the author were right there speaking. It was written in a very relaxed manner—in some cases, too relaxed. At times, it felt more like reading a first draft still scattered with repetitive language and redundant ideas and in need of a good editor. But Pogrow's overall message for teachers to shake things up a bit did resonate with me. Students need to find ways to make the content meaningful. They need to find ways to connect to the content so that they can make sense of it, and, ultimately, transfer it.

For the most part, the examples the author shared were created by student teachers to indicate that if they can do this then anyone can. I found myself wondering if the author knew of examples from veteran teachers (other than the two shared lessons he created). Pogrow concedes that there is as yet no substantive research to support that dramatic technique improves learning. He does, however, provide his anecdotal observations to share his belief that there is a place for dramatic technique in the learning process.

Although I easily grasped Pogrow’s core contentions, I had a more difficult time with his instructional tactics  and the lesson examples of his student teachers. They did not feel in sync with my own practice. While I cannot heartily recommend this book, I will say that it encouraged me to think about my teaching style and the specific techniques I use to liven up the learning environment for my students. In that sense, the author’s mission was accomplished.
 

Comments

[Larry Webster]

I think the technique would be good for some teachers, while it would not for others. I also find it unusual that the author did not use any veteran teachers as examples. It definitely depends on the personality of the teacher, too.

Thanks for the review of the book!

[David Duez]

Really interesting. I have found that some of my dramatic lessons (dressing as a Roman Soldier, trench warfare with paper balls, purchase points system w/Reformation) have been very successful. But, what is missing here is the fact that the lesson must be supported by strong setup or follow through to be sure that the objectives are taught and learned. It is one thing to do something dramatic, it is quite another to be sure that learning has occurred. When the two are tied together it can be quite an experience for students and one that they will always remember.

[Stanley Pogrow]

As the author, I appreciate the review by Elizabeth Stein, and the work of John Norton of middleweb.com for making it possible.

I do want to comment on 2 issues related to the review and readers comments. First, I would like to reinforce what David said. Drama and humor is most powerful instructionally when linked to content. That is the key contribution of Outrageous teaching techniques, in that they are geared to presenting the content that would otherwise be taught conventionally. Instead, the content is presented via techniques that are 180 degrees different. The techniques are designed such that the intended content objective evolves from the dramatic context, and is discussed at the end of the lesson. In other words, the goal is not entertainment, but an alternative powerful form of teaching and learning that should be used judiciously.

Second, both the reviewer and Larry mentioned that lessons from veteran teachers were missing and/or should have been included. Most of my work with the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) project mentioned by the reviewer has been with wonderful veteran teachers, and their insights were part of the inspiration and ideas for outrageous teaching. At the same time, the goal of this book was to show that the techniques work to improve student interest and learning, and that they could be easily applied by anyone. If inexperienced teachers, such as the ones described in the book, could use the techniques to pull off masterful teaching, then veteran teachers certainly can. I also suspect that veteran teachers, even already creative ones such as the reviewer, will find some of the techniques counter-intuitive/different. That is not a bad thing! I am confident that if veteran teachers decide to trust the techniques, they will find the experience rewarding and create a basis for extending their own practice—while at the same time extending the practice of Outrageous instruction as part of a professional learning community (PLC). I understand that the participation of veteran ideas is critical to building the needed PLC. So this book is just a first step. My primary goal now is to learn from and share the ideas/lessons/units of veteran teachers. Outrageous lessons/units can be sent to me directly to me at the email address in the book, and can be sent to be shared with others at outrageousteaching.blogspot.com.

[Cindy]

Does this apply to younger students. ie k - 6? How does it effect students with Autism in the same class? This is interesting. I just want to see if this is worthwhile for me to purchase the book. I have to be careful.

[Elizabeth Stein]

I enjoyed reading through these comments...

And it's so great to hear from you, Mr. Pogrow! Thanks for adding your thoughts in response to the review and readers' comments.

After reading through these comments a few thoughts come to mind:

#1: Teachers must know their students. So in the case of cindy's question, I say--yes. The ideas expressed in this book can apply to any grade and any group of students. However, the teacher must know his or her students and apply the technique appropriately; always linking the "outrageous" act to meaningful content and objectives. The act should never be so "outrageous" that the lesson objectives get lost in the mix. Meaninful connections must be made by the students and tied seamlessly to instruction and assessment.

#2: It's really all about grabbing students' attention at the onset and sustaining their attention long enough for them to really allow the content and key concepts to seep in--with transfer as the goal.

#3: Mr. Pogrow also states that this technique is not to be used with all lessons. Just balanced enough to allow students to get in the habit of becoming engaged and self-motivated--and add that habit to their repetoire of learning behaviors--especially during those lessons where the teacher does not teach outrageously. My hope is that students will get into the groove of feeling that sense of engagement and then allow for this to become part of who they are as learners at an independent level.

David, it sounds like you have some great ideas for Mr. Pogrow's next book!

Larry, I agree that personality plays a key role in this type of teaching. You're right, some teachers will need to step outside of their comfort zone if they'd like to experience this firsthand. A well-planned outrageous lesson just may be the answer to some ho-hum lessons...

Thank you, again, Mr. Pogrow!