Students want to know what they are learning and why it is useful to learn these things. It motivates students when they can link the knowledge they have learned to their own living environment. It has been found that students retain information much better if they perceive it as valuable.

Another advantage is that students develop better and more complete knowledge about a subject whose lessons they find fun, interesting, useful and important.

What is engagement, and how can you recognize it in the classroom? I quote: the Glossary of Education Reform “Engagement is the degree of attention, curiosity, optimism, and passion students display when they learn or are taught.”

An engaged student will make a clear effort to learn, take an active interest in the subject, and do their best to understand the subject. This learning goes beyond what is expected of them, for example, passing an exam or completing an assignment.

A disengaged student has lack of motivation, lack of interest in the material, limited participation in class activities.

Active learning focuses on involving students in the learning process through meaningful activities that help them to really think about what they are doing and why they are doing it. The idea is to give students the opportunity to really participate in the lessons. If you start from the investigative attitude of the children, you will automatically connect to their world of experience, and you will achieve fundamental learning more quickly. Conversely, you can stimulate curiosity by making an activity meaningful for the children.

Inquiry-based and design-based learning can be seen as 'learning strategies in which students develop their understanding of certain concepts together as researchers or designers'

Inquiry learning starts from a question, design learning from a problem. Inquiry-based and design-based learning leads to a search for an answer or a solution.

They are often more involved in activities in which they can take the initiative themselves, for example when they formulate (research) questions, come up with a solution or draw up a plan of action.

Through inquiry-based and design-based learning, children come into contact with other ways of acquiring knowledge. They experience what it is like to conduct research and what it is like to come to new knowledge and insights themselves and with others. Discovering that this is possible, that you can do this yourself and then automatically have new questions, is important. Children develop an investigative attitude, research and design skills and higher thinking skills. They learn certain knowledge concepts and can practice certain language and math topics in a concrete situation.

An investigative attitude consists of six components: wanting to know, wanting to understand, being innovative, being critical, wanting to share and wanting to achieve. By doing different types of investigative and designing activities, you can stimulate these attitudes.

Examples of research skills are: experimenting, observing, organizing, recording results, posing a researchable question and devising a research design.

Examples of design skills are, for example: designing, making and testing something, observing, recording results, and coming up with requirements that a solution must meet.

In both types of activities, children are involved in reasoning, drawing conclusions and presenting. This also includes certain ways of thinking, for example: thinking in terms of cause and effect, thinking in terms of continuity and change, thinking in patterns. The skills are addressed in different phases of an investigative or designing activity.