Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Chapter 11: Motivation in Learning and Teaching

Journal Questions 1 - 4. 

5.  What motivates you as a student?  What motivational strategies to you plan to use with your future students?

10 comments:

  1. 1. The ideas that would be most useful to me in a future teaching situation of secondary mathematics include the guidelines for encouraging self-worth in students. In order to do this, we must explain to students that abilities can always be improved. As teachers, we can provide students with a scoreboard to keep track of quiz grades to see real evidence that effort pays off. We should explain to the students the difference between learning goals and performance goals. Learning goals show personal improvement over time, and performance goals are proving your abilities to others through demonstrations. Create a classroom in which failure tells what needs to be improved, and encourage students to ask for help and to give help.

    2. The content of this chapter that has changed my view of teaching and learning is knowing when and how to give appropriate teacher praise. If a teacher assumes that student failure is due to reasons beyond the student’s control, then the teacher gives the student sympathy and unsolicited help and no punishment. Evidence shows that when teacher-praise is given out of pity, students are likely to associate their failure to a lack of ability. Teachers need to be careful and not send the wrong message to students.

    3. Using the ideas in this chapter, I would design my secondary mathematics curriculum around student interests related to real-life problems and active participation in laboratory activities and projects. Teachers also need to include well-constructed questions, logical puzzles, and paradoxes. In order to hold students’ interests, the questions and puzzles should be related to meaningful learning.

    4. A question that this information has evoked concerns homework. When a teacher realizes that a student comes from an unsupportive, chaotic home environment, should the student be held accountable for completing homework in the same manner as the rest of the class?

    5. My motivational set is mastery-oriented. I value achievement and focus on increasing my skills and abilities. I put forth my best effort towards earning a degree in teaching secondary mathematics, and getting a job in this field motivates me. I know how to handle stress, and I am confident in my ability to learn. I am motivated by feedback on my efforts so I know where improvement is needed and where I have succeeded. My family as well as the people who look up to me motivate me to do my best as well. The motivational strategies that I plan to use with my future students include the following: First, the four basic conditions which include an organized classroom, a patient and supportive teacher, challenging but reasonable work, and authentic learning tasks must be met. Then the students’ motivation to learn in any situation is based on the answers to the following four questions: “Can I succeed at this task? Do I want to succeed? What do I need to do to succeed? Do I belong?” It is the responsibility of the teacher to create the classroom environment that will guide the students to the answers to these questions.

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  2. 1. The ideas in this chapter that will be most helpful to me is learning what motivation is. A teacher needs to be able to motivate her students and know where their motivation comes from. Learning the five general approaches to motivation will also be helpful because it helps a teacher understand where students can be motivated.
    2. From this chapter, my view has been changed a little bit about where your motivation can come from. It is not always intrinsic motivation, but a lot of it is extrinsic motivation.
    3. I would design my classroom from this chapter with a possible bulletin board of successful people that really had to achieve a lot to get to where they are. That way the students in my classroom can see by example of real people that had to have motivation to get where they are and that could possibly motivate students in the classroom to motivate themselves and have perserverance. Then, they too can be successful.
    4. A question evoked from this chapter: what do you do when your students kinda have the wrong motivation and only see school as a competition and nothing else?
    5. As a student, I am motivated about thinking about my future and how I want to be the best I can be because students' learning depends on it and I do not want to let future students down. So trying to be the best prepared motivates me and drives me to do my best. Also, my family motivates me because I want to make them proud and I want to make myself proud as well and be able to achieve my goal.
    As a teacher, I would use the future as motivation as well. I would have students think of want to do and have that be a long term goal for them. Then, we could set short term goal that they can easliy achieve and be motivated for the next goal. That way a student can have success and that could be a motivator for students to go on.

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  3. 1. The idea that I think will be most valuable to me from this chapter is the idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I feel that using extrinsic motivation to build a student’s confidence to begin with is a great idea to get student’s to become more involved in the work that is going on. Once a student has gained enough confidence, then they will be able to motivate themselves to staying involved in what is going on within the classroom and also to drive them to achieve more than people may normally expect from them.
    2. The content of this chapter has shown me that students need to be motivated, whether that is through rewards such as points, or awards, or intrinsically by them wanting to complete more challenging work, or to want to complete all their work to a high level so that they can achieve a higher grade. As a teacher I think that I have to be able to provide an environment that nurtures student’s confidence by rewarding them with a physical reward, to encourage their internal drive to succeed.
    3. A way that I could design my classroom around this idea is to set up a reward scheme for the students, which gives them something to aim for and work towards. By setting students personal goals to work towards as well as rewarding them for their work, it will help drive their intrinsic motivation to reach their goals.
    4. What are some effective ways to motivate students both intrinsically and extrinsically? There are obvious ones, but are there any ‘outside the box’ motivation tools that will motivate students a bit more than some of the more traditional methods work.
    5. Some of the things that motivate me as a student are the want to succeed, I personally love winning, and hate doing anything but, and so if I am successful and getting good grades then I consider that as a personal victory. Another thing that motivates me is the desire to get a good job and be able to help the next generation and share the love that I have for sports with them.

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  4. 1. The idea in this chapter that will be most beneficial to me is that of the different kinds of general motivation. Motivation is very diverse and changes depending on the student and their particular situation. It is important for us as teachers to know what motivates our students and what techniques we should use to motivate certain students. Every student is different and accepts motivation in many different ways. We must recognize and know our students so they can achieve success at the highest possible rate.

    2. The idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have changed my view of teaching. It is not only the rewards and punishments that students respond to either positively or negatively. They have their own motivation within themselves whether they know it or not. It is important to know that the correct intrinsic factors must be present in order for a student to be motivated to learn and want to be successful. It is not only the outside influences and environment that effect the way students learn.

    3. I would design my classroom around ideas of being motivated to live a healthy lifestyle and exercise regularly. I would include posters and other forms of media that encourage and motivate my students to eat healthy, exercise, and stay in shape. I would use cost/benefit techniques to motivate my students to be healthy and exercise to improve their quality of life.

    4. How can I motivate certain students who particularly need specific help eating right and exercising every day in the limited amount of class time their is each week?

    5. I am personally motivated in school by my family, sports, and myself. I always want to do the best I can and be the best I can be. Failure is not an option for me. I work hard for myself and my family as well. I also work hard so I am able to play and succeed at a sport that I love.

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  5. 1. All of the different approaches to motivation are the ideas that will be most beneficial for me from this chapter. It helps to know how to interpret what is driving students and how to motivate them to improve and succeed.
    2. The content from this chapter that has changed my view of teaching is the fact that not every student will be motivated by the same things. I will need to adjust my teaching and things I do in order to motivate all students. I may even have to individually motivate because not all motivators are preferred by every student.
    3. I am not sure how I would design my classroom from ideas from this chapter. I guess I might have some motivational posters. I could have the students draw pictures of things that personally motivate them, and I could let them hang them up around the room to be a reminder to them.
    4. My question is what do you do for a student who honestly does not want to learn and nothing motivates them? There is bound to be some students like that.
    5. Personally, I am motivated by receiving good grades. I prefer success over failure, and I get frustrated when I don’t do as well as I had wanted. Also, I’m motivated because my parents and family expect a lot from me. And, ultimately I am motivated by doing my best as worship to God. For my future students, I will use as many of the strategies from this chapter as I can. Bringing their personal interests into it is a good strategy. Rewards and praise for success are also good strategies.

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  6. 1.The idea in this chapter that will be most beneficial to me will be intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I want to be able to know what all my students intrinsic motivations are. I want to have a pretty close relationship with all my students so I will be able to know what some of their personal motivators are and help them with that. I also want to be able to recognize what external motivators to give my students so that they will continue to work hard and get better in school. I just want to be able to motivate my students to be the best learners they can be.
    2.In this chapter the one thing that stood out to me and really opened my eyes was how intrinsic motivators can really affect students. Sometimes these motivators can affect them in a bad way and cause students to stress out, because they are thinking about wanting to impress whatever their motivator might be. I am also shocked as to how much intrinsic motivators can really help a student. I can speak from personal experience about how an intrinsic motivator really makes a student do better in school. I just did not realize it until I got to class.
    3. I would design my class in a fashion that would show my students it is okay to have motivators, and to try to use each of theirs in a positive manner. I would also design my class in a fashion that would make it easy for me to know what some of my students motivators so I myself can use all these particular motivations on my students.
    4.My question is how do you know when a child's motivator is really hurting them more than helping them?
    5.Personally what motivates me as a student is making my parents proud and looking forward to the future for a good job one day. The motivational strategies I will try to use are encouragement and rewards for when my students do good. I would also use some punishments as motivators to get my students to do what they need to do in the class (but only if they already are not doing what should be done). I would try to apply some intrinsic motivators for my students if I can figure out what they are successfully.

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  7. 1. The most valuable thing learned in this lesson is the ability to motivate. I think that an ability to motivate is a very important aspect in a teacher. It is one thing to be able recite information correctly, it is entirely different to be able to make students want to learn.
    2. One thing that student out to me is how a teacher needs to be flexible. A teacher often has to think quick and be able to help and manage students in many unexpected situations.
    3. I would design my classroom to be where students could have access to many material that would motivate their ideas. I would have books and puzzles to spark student motivation.
    4. No questions were evoked.
    5. To me, success is the biggest motivator as a student. I want to do well in my classes and feel proud of my work. When teaching students, especially something difficult, I believe it is important to have them experience success early. This success will keep them going as they build upon what they already know. When you continually fail it is easier to give up.

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  8. 1. The idea in this chapter that will be most beneficial to me is that motivation comes in many forms. Some students will react best to certain forms of motivation. The most effective form of motivation depends on the situation as well as the student. Many times when people talk about motivating in the elementary classroom they think of candy rewards, but for certain situations this may not be the best choice. I will need to remember this for my future classroom.
    2. The thought that not all students will have strong intrinsic motivation changed my view of teaching. I kind of always knew this was true but never really thought about it. When I was in school I did not need much praise or other extrinsic rewards to do well in school. I will benefit me to remember this in my future classroom. I think that before I saw all my students as similar to me.
    3. I would design my classroom to encourage students. I know that when I was in school sometime when I was working on difficult problems I would look around the room while thinking. A positive and encouraging poster can give the students motivation to move on. In addition, I will design my classroom to be a place where students are comfortable sharing their thoughts by encouraging students to build one another up with positive feedback. In addition, I will provide positive feedback.
    4. Question:
    How do I know when my motivation goes from being motivating to being annoying or not working with my students?
    5. My motivation comes from success, my family, and the want to make a difference for my future family and future students. Also, the want to be able to provide my future family and future students with what they need to succeed.

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  9. 1. While reading Chapter 10, I was impacted most by the information regarding the various types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors. I think understanding these different factors and how they play into each individual motivation will be very important for me as a teacher.
    2. I think for me as a teacher, this chapter on the basic level was not something new to me. I have seen all these at work in school or baseball or other aspects of my life. Having said that, I can now categorize and specifically see different aspects of these motivational factors at work and as a result better understand them.
    3. In setting up my classroom, I think the best way to do it is to provide students with a rewards system. I would like to develop a chart or graph that supports students working and behaving in class. This will be an excellent way for me to provide some extra extrinsic motivation.
    4. My struggle is how I am supposed to motivate a student who does not want to learn at all and does not care about any type of consequences? I specifically remember one student during my observation times who was totally checked out of the assignment and had no desire to be a part of the lesson. I struggle with understanding how to reach this student.
    5. I am motivated by interests and the simple desire to succeed. I want to be the best I can and see what I am capable. I have the desire to work. I understand that many students don’t have this same desire. I think that understanding why you are working on something is very important. If, we, as students, have a clear understanding of why we are doing something it can go a long way.

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  10. 1. The ideas in this chapter that will be most useful to me in the classroom are the ideas about motivation and goal setting. Students are motivated in different ways, and finding out the ways in which they are motivated can help me and them by making them interested which will help them to succeed in school and not even think about it. Some kids can be motivated simply by the fact they want to do well and that is enough for them, but others may need some sort of reward system to really get them into a lesson. Motivation really is key to learning and teaching, because if you or the students aren’t motivated, then nothing will get done because they don’t see a need to.

    2. The content of this chapter has really reinforced my idea of motivating my student. I have always known it was a key to teaching, but now I have a better understanding of the different ways students can be motivated, and ways to encourage them and drive them to do even better in school.

    3. Using the ideas in this chapter, I would provide a way for my students to find interests in the topics we are covering. Whether that be providing them with books in the Reading Center on the topic, or giving them a list of websites to check out in the Computer Center, or games in which they can learn more about the topic. Getting them to find a reason to want to learn and enjoy studying the topic will help me because I won’t have to try as hard to get them to pay attention because they will already want to learn about it.

    4. How could you motivate students to learn a simple math lesson that they just have to pay attention to, even if it may not seem practical or interesting?

    5. I personally am a very intrinsically motivated student. I just like to succeed and feel bad about myself if I don’t do well. I like to please others by my good school performance. I understand that all my students will not feel that same way, so I plan to use their interests and curiosity to my advantage. I will strive whenever possible to find ways in which they can develop and ask questions about a topic, mainly using the Centers and resources I mentioned above. I will also have a external rewards system that the students help me develop to help in those times when they just can’t find anything interesting on the topic or I don’t have the opportunity to let them develop the topic further than a class discussion.

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