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The following definitions are under construction at the authentic engagement wiki and will be regularly refined and updated thanks to your comments below and collaboration at the wiki.

Authentic engagment is a powerful means to the end of learning.  Authentic engagement connects students to content through learning that allows for collaboration, inquiry, and leads to authentic work – work that extends beyond the classroom and contributes to students’ communities.

Characteristics of Authentic Engagement with Learning

1. Students see their work as personally meaningful.
2. Students’ feel challenged by the rigor of the work, persisting in difficult tasks because they consider the tasks worthwhile.
3. Students master content through project-based, inquiry-driven learning with access to multiple types of media, including experts.
4. Students work and learn collaboratively and socially, both online and off.
5. Students evaluate for and select the best tools for their work.
6. Students choose to revise work until it reflects their internal vision of what they learned and how they want to represent it.

Characteristics of Authentic Work

1. Students’ work is published for an authentic audience.
2. Students receive feedback on their work from experts before and after publication.
3. Students revise work until it shows mastery of content and reflects the habits of mind of experts in its disicplines.
4. Students’ work benefits their community.

Paula White (@paulawhite on Twitter, blogging at tzstchr.edublogs.org/) posts on engagement here, including John Antonetti’s engagement cube which highlights best practices in the design of learning for engagement.  Another viewpoint on engagement comes from the Schlechty Center. Robert J. Marzano presents a meta-study take on engagement in chapter 5 of The Art and Science of Teaching. Bob Peterson writes about motivating students to do quality work here at Rethinking Schools Online. Quality work as defined by William Glasser, of Choice Theory fame, comes from students’ intrinsic engagement with learning in a joyful place, and thus also shares some characteristics with authentic engagement.  Expeditionary Learning at schools like King Middle School, as well as authentic intellectual work and service-learning practices like those at Quest High School, also provide models for creating authentic engagement.

Please comment, tweet using the #AE hash-tag, send your thoughts to Chad, and join the authentic engagement wiki to help crosswalk these various definitions of engagement, as well as to refine, grow out, and scale up our understanding of authentic engagement and how to reform classroom practice with it.