Recently in Learning Category

            What are you going to do with your life? How are you going to get there? Why? These are questions that are presented to teens of all ages, backgrounds, socioeconomic status, and race are presented with all over the country. But what are the answers to these questions? Do these answers matter if our basic education is not being delivered?  Due to the recent publicity of high school drop out rates in American I came to ask myself why high school students drop out. Many of the ninth graders will express their desire to attend a college, or have a career; but why do they not succeed. There are many hypotheses' that elaborate on this idea, and president Obama actually has a working goal to solve this problem.  Personally I think motivation could be behind this idea. Motivation of the teachers, students and their parents could be the reason,

            In the article listed at the bottom of the page discusses the problems faced in our country with not only drop out rates but also the idea of students graduating when expected.  This article looks at the potential problems that could elicit this behavior of dropping out focusing on city school. The article states that there is a 50-50 chance of a student graduating on time in a city school-fewer than 40 percent of the largest city school district are graduating their students on time; Baltimore-38.5 percent, New York- 38.9 percent, and Detroit 21.7 percent. Personally I feel as though this could be caused by the attention to teaching stypes that we discusses in class. If we remember back to the movie we were to watch a couple weeks ago "Stand and Deliver" we observed some teachers that weren't dedicated to altering their teaching styles in order to meet the needs of the students. What is your opinion as to why the graduation rate is so low in American cities and continuing to fall as we speak?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm

http://www.positivepractices.com/Efficacy/SelfEfficacy.html

The part of this article that really struck my interest is the passage: "By the time children reach middle school (grades six through eight), the majority of them have made significant judgments regarding their preferences toward certain academic domains. These judgments are no doubt influenced by their perceived capability with regard to the domains, as a result of social comparison with peers and feedback from teachers. This is particularly true in the domain of mathematics. At this stage, children are already making decisions leading to career directions and choice of classes. By high school, these decisions become more solidified. For educators, the critical time to reduce or prevent mathematics alienation is in middle school, or early on in high school."

From the passage above one could argue that the children learn best by watching/interacting with others.  Reeve states that vicarious experience "involves observing a model enact the same course of action the performer is about to enact (e.g., "you go first, I'll watch").  Seeing others perform masterfully raises an observer's own sense of efficacy."  The quote I've chosen from the article also shows that feedback from teachers is important to the students.  Reeve writes in regards to verbal persuasion "When effective, pep talks persuade the performer to focus more and more on personal strengths and potentials and less and less on personal weaknesses and deficiencies.  Pep talks shift a performer's attention from sources of inefficiency to sources of efficacy."

Do you agree with the statement that middle school students have already made judgments regarding their preferences toward certain academic domains?

http://farmer.newsvine.com/_news/2007/03/19/621317-students-who-never-fail-teachers-who-do

I found this article and thought it pertained to our class discussion on 3-2.  The article is abot the five steps a teacher must take in order to 'never have a student that fails.'.  

The five steps were as follows:  1)Explaination  2)Demonstration  3)Practical Exercise  4)Testing or Examination   5)Critique

I thought all of these steps really related to the term competence.  In our lecture, we discussed important environmental factors that involved one's competence.  One of these was the challenge and feedback.  In these steps, there are places for the practice (#3), challenge (#4), and feedback (#5).   Another thing we also talked about in relation to supporting onces competence, was the structure-- offering support and guidance.  Near the end of the article, the author described how he never had a student fail-- but if they didn't fully grasp the concepts from the first round (of steps 1-5) to start over until you've reached a point of success with the student.  I believe having this system is a good way to not give up on a student and just fail them.  But also, I do believe there can be an immense amount of motivation from the teacher, but what if the student has none?  What if the student has no desire to succeed?  Maybe then this system wouldn't work but a new system needs to be adapted so help change the student's mind about classwork. 

Praise is not always motivating.

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=The%20Power%20(and%20Peril)%20of%20Praising%20Your%20Kids%20--%20New%20York%20Magazine&expire=&urlID=21157633&fb=Y&url=http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/&partnerID=73272

"A growing body of research and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system�strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of 'smart' does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it."

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~culture/sussman.htm 

This article is taken out of an online textbook and concerns culture and psychological implications of living, working, or studying in another culture.  The article goes through the steps of the "sojourner cycle" that goes from first immersion into another culture through returning home to the native culture.  It was a really fascinating read, and brought up a lot of thought-provoking ideas.

The article raises the important issue of how people are deeply rooted in culture without even being aware of it.  This process is called "enculturation" and is the formation of our thoughst and behavior to be similar to those in our culture.  The article explained how many people don't realize the extent of their enculturation until they experience being in a different culture.  When in another culture, one can examine his or her own thoughts and behaviors based on differences or similarities that arise from experiencing the non-native culture.  I found this point particularly interesting because so many people never get or take the opportunity to experience anything different than the culture they were raised in. 

There are so many benefits to being able to more objectively see how your culture has affected who you are.  Enculturation has a natural way of making people believe that their way of thinking or behaving is "right" because that is what they have always known.  Experiencing something different is definitely strange and may feel "wrong" but I think having one's eyes opened to alternative ways of living is important.

Although there are many benefits to experiencing another culture, some of the potential problems are worth noting.  When someone goes to another culture, their sense of identity must be redefined and will probably change at least a little.  This is important to recognize especially when the traveler returns to his or her home culture, as he or she may have trouble re-adjusting to native culture.  Traveling to a different culture can also be a negative experience if the culture is very different from the native culture.  If the native culture has strict ways of doing things or strict beliefs, seeing another culture live in a way that is contradictory to that can be uncomfortable and ego-shattering.  The article goes into more detail on this...you should read it.

This article brought up several motivation questions in my mind:

What motivates some people to constantly seek out new experiences and new cultures, while others are highly motivated to remain in a "bubble" of like-mindedness and similar behavior?

I think thrill-seeking/adventure-seeking is a particular motivation that would cause some people to seek out new cultural experiences.  Motivators for willing choosing to avoid new cultural experiences could be preservation of the ego/self identity, or simply the potential discomfort and fear that could come along with experiencing a new culture.

I found an article that interested me on teacher evaluations. At the school mentioned in the article they are done differently than at UNI. Mid semester the teacher can choose to have the "Focus Feedback" done. About halfway through a normal class, the professor leaves and another person then leads a discussion about the class. Students are asked to critique the professors teaching style, both what the like and do not like. The information is then given to the professor, so if they choose to they can change the class for the rest of the semester.I feel like this would be really helpful, for both student and professor. If students can give input to a professor on something that could help them, competence levels would go up and so would most likely enjoyment for the class. Everyone wants to be competent in the activities we engage in, and this could only help. I know i have had classes in which i would have loved to be able to tell the professor things to change mid semester and have them actually taken into account.

 Often a professor does not know if they are getting the information across to the students, so I think this type of feedback would be useful. Feedback can be a very helpful source, in making changes for the better. Student evaluation is a good way for professors to get feedback on how well their teaching styles is appealing to and helping students learn. Performance feedback can also give the professors a sense of a job well done, if the feedback is positive, and give them something to change or think about if they are getting mostly negative feedback from students.  

            At this University only 20 professors took part in the Focus Feedback, why do you think that is?

            Why do you think so few professors at UNI do student evaluations at the end of the semester?

http://media.www.umdstatesman.com/media/storage/paper1351/news/2010/02/24/News/Optional.Teacher.Evaluations.Used.By.Few.Professors-3878429.shtml

I found this great article by Kathleen McKinney called "Encouraging Students' Intrinsic Motivation."  In this article the author gives nine different strategies that a teacher can use when trying to help motivate students.  The first is to know where the students are.  It is important to know the background about each of the students, so when making a lesson you know the appropriate level to start at.  Second, confront the monster.  This means talking to the students about motivation and the importance of learning. Third, fate does not rule.  Encourage the students so that they can have high self efficacy, try to help set the students up for success.  Fourth, gladly teach and learn.  Offer the students to give feedback about the course, so you can see how they learn most effectively. Fifth, all for one and one for all.  Make a learning community for the students; by having them work in small groups, but also have them do work individually.  Sixth, variety is the spice of life.  There can be a lot of diversity in a class room, so you need to make all things in the classroom diverse as well. Seventh, I did it my way. Give the students some control in the class, for example let them choose between assignments and pick which ones they would rather do. Eight, how many points to get an 'A'.  Some times it not always best to use a traditional grade system, encourage the students to learn and study for something other than grades.  Finally, practice what you preach.  Be a role model for the students, and have everything that is done in the classroom promote learning.

You can view this article at: http://www.cat.ilstu.edu/additional/tips/intMotiv.php .  It goes into detail more on each of the nine strategies.  I think that all nine would be great strategies that a teacher could use in their classroom. So what do you think are these nine strategies good to use in the classroom to promote intrinsic motivation?  Are there any other strategies that you can think of that could be incorporated into the classroom to help with student motivation?

Have you ever found it interesting when in school, that if you were given a chance to help out (when in elementary) and leave the class (in middle to high school and now college) that you were more motivated to complete or finish that paper or learn a task.  

When I was in 5^th grade, every other Friday we would have an afternoon where we could hang out, outside of the class room. Yet, in order to get that chance we had to have completed our homework and turned it in daily, been on good behavior and been to school every day. I found it really interesting when I look back on it now, but the teachers where trying to motivate us to do better and or at least the minimum in order to be able to go somewhere else in the school, or in my case the library. That is where the girls hanged out to talk and slack off; in reality we were supposed to be putting up books for the librarian.  It was an Incentive or reward, which motivated a certain behavior. I guess you can call it extrinsic motivation because we as children worked towards these goals in order to slack off later. Plus it did place some type of situational interest within us, which our textbook talks about as being a type of interest which is short term and can be seen as the shiny object that draws you in and creates a certain type of motivation or gain in knowledge. Even though situational interest is great, a teacher tries to create a more logical expectation of personal interest in a student, which is a long term interest and the student does these activates on their own accord.  Now, I was a student who did well regardless because I personally found that I wanted to achieve more than was expected for me, as well show my parents that I was a good student. I didn't receive an allowance and I didn't get a pass on my chores, but I knew in the long run that I would benefit someday from my motivation to learn. But for other students these incentives were what drove them to at least meet these requirements.

So I searched for ways to motivate students, now I understand that this list is aimed at a younger crowd, but can you imagine if these still worked for us today?

http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/rewards.htm

The list is funny to look back on, but I remember some of these working, here are a few of my favorite.

·         Take a bubble blower out at recess.

·         Free homework passes.

·         Leader for a day.

·         Earn points for class Video.

When you were a child in elementary what motivated you? What motivates you now? Were and are there rewards involved? Like an allowance or a pass of doing chores? Do you think that this reward system has or could have backfired potentially? Also, in thinking about this, our class has some fun activities and incentives as well and do you think that will affect your motivation in learning the material?

Have you ever found it interesting when in school, that if you were given a chance to help out (when in elementary) and leave the class (in middle to high school and now college) that you were more motivated to complete or finish that paper or learn a task.  

When I was in 5^th grade, every other Friday we would have an afternoon where we could hang out, outside of the class room. Yet, in order to get that chance we had to have completed our homework and turned it in daily, been on good behavior and been to school every day. I found it really interesting when I look back on it now, but the teachers where trying to motivate us to do better and or at least the minimum in order to be able to go somewhere else in the school, or in my case the library. That is where the girls hanged out to talk and slack off; in reality we were supposed to be putting up books for the librarian.  It was an Incentive or reward, which motivated a certain behavior. I guess you can call it extrinsic motivation because we as children worked towards these goals in order to slack off later. Plus it did place some type of situational interest within us, which our textbook talks about as being a type of interest which is short term and can be seen as the shiny object that draws you in and creates a certain type of motivation or gain in knowledge. Even though situational interest is great, a teacher tries to create a more logical expectation of personal interest in a student, which is a long term interest and the student does these activates on their own accord.  Now, I was a student who did well regardless because I personally found that I wanted to achieve more than was expected for me, as well show my parents that I was a good student. I didn't receive an allowance and I didn't get a pass on my chores, but I knew in the long run that I would benefit someday from my motivation to learn. But for other students these incentives were what drove them to at least meet these requirements.

So I searched for ways to motivate students, now I understand that this list is aimed at a younger crowd, but can you imagine if these still worked for us today?

http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/rewards.htm

The list is funny to look back on, but I remember some of these working, here are a few of my favorite.

·         Take a bubble blower out at recess.

·         Free homework passes.

·         Leader for a day.

·         Earn points for class Video.

When you were a child in elementary what motivated you? What motivates you now? Were and are there rewards involved? Like an allowance or a pass of doing chores? Do you think that this reward system has or could have backfired potentially? Also, in thinking about this, our class has some fun activities and incentives as well and do you think that will affect your motivation in learning the material?