Cognitive engagement may have been one that I focused on the least during this past summer. While acknowledging that the content at hand can be hard for the students, I forgot to assess whether the content at hand could be too easy for some of my students, and this lack of difficulty may have resulted in boredom with camp for some of my students. I realized, in hindsight, that what I think the students should know may be very different from what they do know, especially given the speed of advancement in technology nowadays. Hence, I have inappropriately deemed much information to be common knowledge before checking what my students know. Another thing I realized after the camp is finished is that cognitive engagement also includes teaching students how to learn on top of what to learn (Bond, 2020), which is something that I often forget. I intend to pay more attention to helping students to develop good learning habits as my goal for my near-future teacher career. 

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Which techniques worked well:

• Questions that prompt deeper thinking

• Teaching students to plan for their work

 

What I could work on next:

• Looking back, I realized that I missed a lot of learning opportunities for the students. When they came to me for a technical difficulty, my first instinct is to solve the issue for them and make sure they keep the flow of the work. However, because I didn't teach them how to solve the problem, the students constantly need to ask for my help when the same problem arises. After a while, I realized the importance of teaching them what to do when a problem arises. Despite the realization, I continue to tell them what to do while doing the steps myself to shorten the amount of time spent on certain problems. This proves to be a big mistake, since the students still didn't know how to solve the problems themselves. Next time, I will make sure to allow the students to try to solve the problems themselves while guiding them by their side. 

• I also plan on helping my students in developing learning strategies. I plan on teaching my students how to learn by helping them to develop good learning habits and time management skills.