Topics Informing My Practice from Mod 3

Since the blog assignment is the topics from mod 3 that could inform your practice, I will start with Student Commitment Depends on Teacher Commitment by: Ben Johnson (Edutopia.org).  Who is responsible for learning in the classroom? Well, I know what my administrators would say...I know what the great NYS Education Department would say...and luckily, I agree; It's my job and certainly my goal that in my class every student will learn. 

Teaching summer school is a good test of that proclamation.  Ben Johnson writes, "When a teacher says, I am the one that makes learning possible in the classroom and I am committed to make it happen, along with students responding cooperatively, that is when learning really happens.  At the end of every day in summer school, teachers are shaking their heads at how little the students care about learning.  In all honesty, that is true.  They all have a myriad emotional baggage.  So, I will be sure to never give up on a class.  Ben Johnson also writes, "We cannot be dependent on others to do what we know we can do as teachers". And, "We have to get to the point where the minimum is not enough."  Parents are depending on summer school teachers to help pull their children out of the rut of failure and put in its place a fresh opportunity to do well in school. Students know when a teacher is doing the minimum. Students know if a teacher is passionate about what they teach, and if they care about their students. They know if the teacher takes personal responsibility for their learning.  I need to continually design motivating lessons that attract their attention and trust, to cover what needs to be learned so the outcome is students growing in competence and expectancies for success.  Hopefully when the summer school time is done, they have developed a sense of control over their educational outcome.

I enjoyed the Goal Theories in Motivational Beliefs, Values, and Goals, Eccles and Wigfield, a sub-topic to Theories Focused on the Reasons for Engagement.  When students are engaged, we teachers are usually happy that they are participating. But the question is, "Why are they engaged?"  If students have task-involved goals, the focus is on mastering a task and increasing their competence.  This type of goal complements learning goals.  If students have an ego-involved goal, it is similar to performance goals.  Their focus is "Can I out perform others and/or I want to look smart".  The outcome of an ego-involved goal is that the student doesn't truly enjoy the learning experience because they're focused on others and not on mastering the task.  You can usually tell when engagement is for a student's ego.  There can be strife within the group, communication that is too loud or critical.  A possible way to inform my instruction is to have students take a self-evaluation inventory at the completion of the task:  what was the outcome, what did the task teach them, did they contribute to the group, how could they have been a better help to the group, etc.  This self-evaluation would redirect them to focus on their performance related to accomplishing the task; did they master it, do they understand it, where could you apply it in the future. I would then give them my score on how well they completed the task and where they could improve.

Theories of Motivation and Volition also in Motivational Beliefs, Values, and Goals, Eccles and Wigfield, refers to both the strength and will needed to complete a task.  Every teacher has had the student that starts a task, but mid-way through, stops, puts their head down, gives up, etc.  Assuming that motivation will guarantee an outcome is obviously not always a fact. The completion of a task comes back to volition.  I would need to read more of Kuhl's (1987) motivation and emotion control strategies for suggestions in how to deal with negative emotional states.  Students with negative emotional states lack a self-regulation when distractions deter them from completing the task.  I do know that teachers need to talk one-on-one and work with students who lack the volition to complete a task.  Probing for what the distractions(s) is/are is the first step.  Sometimes the distraction is immediately solvable and the student can get back to completing the task; sometimes its a recommendation for counseling--ignoring the deficit is never the answer. I taught a study skills class where we (the students and myself) brain-stormed ways to fit studying for tests into their day and night schedules.  Each developed a different strategy that fit their life-style.  Hopefully a distraction was addressed and students could experience more success in test taking.

IDE 736 Mod#3 Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation

In the 2nd section of Eccles and Wigfield's Motivational Beliefs, Values and Goals (2002), they speak of  Theories Focused on the Reasons for Engagement.  In the Goal Theories sub-section, Eccles and Wigfield (p.117) comment on Wentzel (1993,1994) and his statement that,  "Higher-achieving students have higher levels of both social responsibility and achievement goals than lower-achieving students."  Wentzel (1994) documented the many roles that high-achieving students balance throughout their day.  Having see this in real time, I totally agree.

Wentzel (1994) notes high-achieving students possessing the prosocial goal of helping others.  High-achieving students are very gracious in their willingness to help others.  At least at the middle school level, they seem to be unaware that their GPA in their junior year determines their class rank. Wentzel writes higher-achieving students possess the academic prosocial goal of sharing learning with their classmates.  Again, they are more than willing to share information that their classmate may have missed.  Their lower-achieving peers appear to trust and value them for their integrity and honesty which matches Wentzel's peer social responsibility goal of following through on promises made to peers.  They always have the academic social responsibility goal of following a teacher's instructions.

Because high-achieving students are more complex than the mere observations made in the above paragraph, let me continue on with Wentzel's thoughts.  The academic prosocial goals of working with other students does indeed produce peer acceptance.  Rather than get good grades and keep distance from other students, they share their knowledge and others are appreciative.  High-achieving students keep their academic goals high yet have the acceptance of their peers. Academic responsibility goals create a positive relationship with teachers but could alienate peers, if not for their gracious sharing and usual good humor.  They are amazingly cognizant of human expectations. Since they are academically responsible, teachers will ask them to do more or even take part in being a peer teacher.  Of course they will not refuse because of their desire to connect positively with their teachers and reach their personal academic goals.

High-achieving students do at times become overwhelmed.  I see it in their faces.  They are involved in so many activities, clubs, sports, band, and possibly outside school activities that at times they go numb. They are responsible.  The do set high goals and reach them. They do balance their relationships with their peers, teachers and let's not forget their parents.  Wentzel (1991, 1996) writes that both social and academic goals relate to adolescents' school performance and behavior.  Seeing oneself successful, dependable, wanting to learn new things, and wanting to get things done (Wentzel, 1991) does describe the high-achieving student who demonstrates higher levels of both social responsibility and achievement goals.

How does my understanding of this topic inform my teaching?  Because high-achieving students balance such a heavy load of academic goals, interpersonal prosocial goals, and extracurricular activities, I would now be more careful when asking them to do more.  When I see an high-achieving student going numb from their load, I would make it a point to get together with them one on one to problem solve managing their load.  I don't want to talk them out of their goals, just help them adjust it so they can carry it.  These motivated students set unbelievably high expectations for themselves; I will be more alert to their unspoken needs since academically they are usually a pleasure.

Analysis of Motivatioinal Design

myassignment#1

Mod Two Reflection: Effects of Achievement Motivation on Behavior

Wow!  Was this a timely article to read...I am teaching BOCES summer school, one session a day.  Due to my lighter summer schedule, I was asked to sub for another teacher's class.  I had some hesitation because taking over another teacher's class can be a nightmare or a pleasure.  Well, it was a nightmare.

The class was Global 9, meaning, if these students pass, they enter 10th grade. They consisted of every bad behavior one can imagine in a classroom:  disrespectful, arrogant, aggressive, rude, non-cooperative, no participation, talking, laughing, argumentative, and yes, paper airplanes. Although I did my best to connect emotionally with them; yes, I am a nice person and a teacher you can work with, I was clearly outnumbered by the majority of students who already had severely damaged self-esteem.  What a teacher can end up with when confronted with a whole class of students' who failed a course(s) (and are older) is that they are deeply embedded in avoiding any more threat to their self-esteem (Thompson, Davidson, & Barber, 1995). What does this look like? Rather than risking any more deterioration to their self-esteem, the class withdraws all academic effort. If their noncompliance results in another failure, the failure is not due to their intellect or lack of ability.  They simply decided to enjoy the class in a non-productive, poor behavior, peer encouraged display of, "Who cares about school anyway? It's stupid."  In Rabideau's Effect of Achievement Motivation on Behavior, he writes that self-worth theory states that in certain situations students stand to gain by not trying and deliberately withholding effort. Due to their uncertainty (Rabideau) of being successful, even if they were to put forth effort, it appears they don't want to take the risk. If I had this class for a school year, my task would be to present instruction that would motivate them and hopefully encourage them to relax. I would have to time to link instruction to their interests. I am a huge promoter of sowing confidence into my learners and allowing them to experience success.  I would then expect student satisfaction to increase in their own abilities and possibly grow a willingness for individuals to reduce performance-avoidance goals and increase performance-approach goals (Elliot & Church, 1997).

Designing Motivation into Library and Information Skills

I was surprised, at first, why this article was included in the required reading. My idea of the library and librarians could very well be old school.  A quiet, still, musty, book-laden room accompanied by a very sweet, elderly, slow-moving, but alas, very intelligent librarian.

Snooze.  At one of my first colleges that I attended, the work study option was to work in the library.  I lasted a day.

Luckily, I found the reading fresh and innovating.  I know for a fact that the culture of the school library at the secondary level is in transition.  The Junior-Senior library in my school district is run by a media specialist that does indeed stimulate intellectual curiosity and encourages information seeking (Small, 1998).  How do I know this?  The library is all full and very active.  There is air of productivity.  It reminds me more of a busy office.  There is collaboration, group work, individual research, sharing, a hum of activity, yet no one is yelling, "It's too noisy in here, be quiet!"  I would say that the industrious environment matches the Flow Theory (SLMQ 1998).  The students appear to be immersed in a challenging activity where they must be experiencing a sense of control and personal reward.  I would also say that our librarian is able to provide a supportive environment that allows and assures students that they can get pass the exploration stage of a project and gain momentum with direction.  What I like most about this design is that the librarian, also known as the library media specialist, works with the teacher more as a co-teacher sharing the responsibility of guiding students in their mastery of information skills.

The Systematic Process of Motivational Design (Keller, 1987)

The second component of the ARCS model is called "motivational design."  What kinds of motivational strategies could one use to motivate a specific audience to become intrinsically interested, willingly participate and sustain their attention or the "A" of ARCS.

A.1 in Keller's Motivational Categories states, "What can I do to capture their interest?"

This week I returned to summer school to teach Physical Science 8.  My class is very small due to budget cuts. I am teaching one class vs. the usual two, and there are only 11 students.  Of course, they don't want to be there. Of course, they hate science or they hated their prior science teacher. Using the Attention strategy of Perceptual Arousal: providing novelty, surprisingness, incongruity, or uncertainty, I asked the students, "Why do you think I'm here?"  They responded "money".  I agreed that was one of the reasons I was teaching summer school.  I also reassured them that I enjoy helping students experience success and realize that they are smart and capable. My goal is to convey to the class I can about them and their presence in the class; the hidden goal to satisfy Maslow's belonging and acceptance need. I then went to each student one by one and asked, "Why are you here?" Their answers were either a personal flaw that sabotaged their passing grade or "the teacher", or both! The "teacher" answers confirmed that some students thought they failed because of some external force and did not fully acknowledge that their actions played a part in the negative outcome. (Designing Motivation into Library and Information Skills Instruction (SLMQ, 1998) (Weiner's Attrition theory,1972) (Seligman, 1975). Although they were candid on some of their own personal academic flaws that resulted in summer school, when asked to write down one personal goal for this summer school class the next day, most wrote "to pass summer school".  Not enough!!  I believe the best way I can meet their needs, (which is to pass summer school), is to provide my learners with at least one clear personal goal that they can associate (Attribution Theory) with the desired positive outcome.

Motivation

Newton's First Law:  Objects at rest remain at rest, and objects in motion remain in motion with the same velocity, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force...

Newton's first law is also called the Law of Inertia

Inertia, in one form, is the state of being inert or inactive.  How do you motivate yourself when it is easier to rest, do nothing and simply maintain status quo?  A matching thought is how do you motivate others to learn and embrace new ideas and/or challenges when they are content to stay where they are.  Inertia, in the second form, is to stop motion.  Can motion without a clear goal be futile or a time-waster?

Do instructors need to self-motivate to keep instruction fresh?  I'm motivated to begin this class and that is a good start!