Engaged students are effective learners. Disengaged students suffer, avoid learning and fall behind.
Studies show that a typical undergraduate student is spending less and less time studying outside of class with each passing year. Student drop-out rates are increasing and students are taking longer to complete their four-year degrees. Therefore, it is imperative for instructors to adopt student engagement techniques to re-engage and motivate their students. Motivated students undertake classroom tasks seriously and find mastering taught skills a valuable exercise.

Determining which students are entertained, engaged or disengaged whilst teaching is often difficult. There are the obvious symptoms of disengaged students such as low attendance rates, disinterest looks on students’ faces or; students performing familiar finger swipes on laptops of cell phones synonymous with viewing social media. However, some symptoms are not always as obvious:

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