Students are engaged in the learning process when their brains and/or bodies are interacting with the content. For example, I was recently teaching 20 first year medical students a class on the importance of observation. I gave them 15 minutes to walk around campus with a partner; no speaking was allowed during the walk. When they returned, they spent 10 minutes comparing notes with their partner about what they had seen. We then spent 30 minutes discussing as a group what they learned from the exercise. I could have given a lecture on perception, observation, and individual differences, but 20 % of them would have been reading email, another 30 % would have been thinking about other events in their lives, 25 % would be frantically trying to take notes, and 25 % would be listening intensely trying to remember what I said.

And that illustrates one method of interacting with student brains; engage them in storytelling. Why do you think storytelling has such a powerful impact? And that illustrates another method; ask a question that makes students think, even if it is rhetorical.

The illustration below reflects one concept of learning.