Module 5

Motivation is very important in the classroom. We want our students to be excited to work towards a goal and work hard to complete a task. The biggest problem teachers face is finding that motivation and continuing it throughout the day. The biggest thing we as teachers want to avoid is amotivation, which is complete lack of any intent to act. On the other hand, we want our students to be seeking out the answer and looking for the challenge, which would be referred to as intrinsic motivation (pg.445). The last kind of motivation talked about in the chapter is extrinsic motivation, which refers to finishing the task, but for a different reason other than interest in the activity itself. After comparing and contrasting these, the most important motivator to look for is extrinsic, because it could be hard to identify. That student may be finishing the task, but with little effort and negative emotion towards it. We have to be aware of our students and their attitudes towards learning so we know they are doing their very best work.

                Some ways the book encouraged positive motivation was through rewards or incentives (pg. 446). I personally don’t think this is going to be the best way to increase motivation. Rewards can only go so far, and grades aren’t always important to every student. I agree more on the cognitive approach to motivation. It says that behavior is determined by our thinking and not by our rewards or punishments from the past (pg. 447). Motivation is determined from within and the individual’s own expectations and value of whatever goal is at hand. I think this is more realistic to believe, because like I said, not everyone is going to be motivated through reward.

                Each student has their own individual needs. These needs are made up of physiological, safety, love, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, and self actualization (pg. 449). This was explained in a great way, and that was if these needs are satisfied, then there will be less motivation wasted on trying to fulfill them. This will then allow students to focus on what is assigned to them in school so they can stay motivated on that instead of worrying about other problems going on in their life. People want to be in control and if we give them that, then their motivation to succeed should increase (pg. 452). Giving students the sense of growth and control will help them stay on task and complete to the best of their ability.

Module 4

The importance of understanding metacognition can help with students who struggle to find the main idea. Being able to reflect on what you learn and find ways to remember the important idea can be helpful to students who struggle with comprehension or any form of cognitive learning (pg. 328). Finding out the important elements of learning, whichever topic it may be, and finding ways to stay away from all distractions can help with comprehension and understanding (pg. 329). It is important to tell the students that metacognition doesn’t have to happen all the time, and things will become easier and more routine and automatic. I remember growing up, reading was my worst subject. I would rush through the story and never comprehend anything. It was something I struggled with throughout my schooling, but once I found strategies that worked for me to help with my comprehension it all became easier. I think that finding out ways students enjoy and pay attention to will help them with comprehending and paying attention for longer periods of time.

After reading about all the different learning strategies, they all sparked a memory from my different levels of schooling. Teaching certain learning strategies that help with comprehension is important to learn early on so you don’t have to struggle when the content becomes more difficult and in-depth. Some of the important principles the book mentions were mnemonics, self-taught, desire to learn, belief in the subject, and background on why it is important to know (pg. 323). The biggest principle that stood out to me was the desire to learn. This was something that really affected me in college. I was taking all these biology and chemistry classes that I had absolutely no interest in. Once I sat myself down and told myself I need to do something I will enjoy for the rest of my life, I changed my major. Taking classes that I was interested in changed my whole mindset of school and I was doing much better that I had before. This is important when teaching, even though we must follow a curriculum, using these principles can make learning more fun. Especially giving background on the subjects that may not be as interesting, but finding the purpose of why its important may be a way to increase interest.

Learning about the different kinds of problem solving was also very interesting to me. Looking at functional fixedness with getting stuck on using convention materials is probably something that happens quite often. Some students only know one way to solve a problem and don’t want to go the extra mile to try something new and different, even though it could save them time. This also relates to response set, with only one way of representing a problem. In the real world, problems we may have encountered in school may be presented differently somewhere else. Being able to learn the similarities makes this problem-solving skill important (pg. 346).

The last topic I wanted to talk about was the importance of creativity. Working with divergent and convergent thinking and the importance of purposing different ideas helps with creativity. This can be measured through originality, fluency, and flexibility. Each of these are building blocks to increase both kinds of thinking (pg. 350). Creativity in the classroom is important because it’s involved in personality factors, motivational patterns, and background experiences (pg. 351). I think giving your students the chance to express themselves in different ways is very important, and I also think that it’s very important to push them to be creative. In the classroom I shadow, the teacher always encourages them when drawing to make it big and colorful and to take up the whole page. They usually draw little stick figures and finish quick. I like that she sees the importance of simply drawing and coloring and make them express themselves in this kind of way. Being able to express themselves through a picture can involve critical thinking because it is a different form of expression. I intend to push this in my classroom as well.

Teacher Interview

Link to Interview

After reading and interviewing my sister, I found many similarities between the both on classroom management. This gives some props to her because she is working with the book and it has been shown to be successful. One question that I really wanted the answer to was the difference in managing the classroom at different age levels. This really interests me became at this point, I am not sure if I would want to teach the younger grades or if I want to lean more towards the older ages of elementary. In the book (pg. 490), it comments on how gaining cooperation is an important aspect of classroom management and it will obviously differ when working with kindergarteners and high school seniors. I had the thought that the older grades would be easier to manage because they are more mature, but as the book also states, some students begin to testify and defy authority in their later years of elementary. In middle elementary years, school has become a routine and being able to flow through class and keep interest is usually maintained. This is very interesting to me because I felt the opposite way. As my sister stated in her interview, there are different kinds of activities she used for first grade that wouldn’t work as well for third graders because of their maturity level and their interest in it, but there were some things she carried over to the older grades.

            Another question that sparked my interest was how do students manage themselves. I never thought about this before I was reading on other people’s interview question ideas, and this one stood out to me. When I asked my sister this question, she said that other student will motivate their peers to listen and to stay on task when an award was at hand. This is also a kind of positive reinforcement she used, table points. Management for self-management (pg. 492) relates to this topic because it explains how self-control and self-regulation is a fundamental shift in classroom management today. When a student misbehaves, my sister uses “Success Sheets” to monitor how well they do each week. Getting a letter scratched off will be their consequence, but she mentioned how she turned this into a positive thing at the end. Instead of asking how many letters they lost, she would turn it around and ask how many they had left. I think that is important to turn a bad into a good, so they learn from their mistakes. This is a great way to have students participate in self-management because they are in control of losing their letter or not. This teaches students how to take responsibility and work a little bit harder to become successful. As the book states (pg. 493), “if you teach your students to manage their own behavior and learning, you should have fewer management problems.” This has been seen to be true in my sister’s classroom. I asked her what behavioral problems she was dealing with in class, and she said there weren’t any major consistent ones. This means that the tasks she is using to manage the class are working in the correct way. Every now and then things happen, but it isn’t a problem she is dealing with in her classroom today. It is important to stop problems quickly so they don’t have to lead to involving administration (pg. 506). This was something that I also asked my sister about. She said she hadn’t had major behavioral problems that she couldn’t handle on her own, she just had to have others involved when it dealt with educational problems where they may need extra help that she couldn’t provide on her own.

            No class is ever perfect and no student is going to be happy and participate every day. Therefore, I was interested in how she dealt with students who were having a bad day and don’t want to cooperate. The answer my sister gave to this question related to personal territories that was discussed in the book (pg. 498). Seating arrangements, whether it be the front or back, clusters, or circles, all can affect how student learns. My sister talked about one of her students who likes to get up and walk round and will sit in the back at his own table. She said this is the way he learns best and if he stays in arm’s length of the desk, she will allow him to stand. Everyone works and learns differently and being able to notice that early on is important. Going back to students having bad days, this is something that also is best to figure out early in the day. My sister said there are many signs that she will notice if her kids are acting off, and she will pull them aside and talk about the issue as soon as she can. This is important to her because she doesn’t want it to ruin that students chance to learn. Catching negative behavior early on before things get worse is important because then they can talk about it and move on from it quickly. Some student may want to sit by themselves for a while and be left alone, and that is okay. Once you get a better relationship with your students, it will be easier to notice their signs and figure out their best solution to fix the problem.

            For students who aren’t having a bad day, but don’t usually participate also need some sort of motivation. My question based off this topic was what was the best kind of positive reinforcement for your students. Encouraging engagement is a huge topic talked about in the book (pg. 501), and my sister had many kinds she uses. She said the best kind is one the whole school is participating in. For her school, they had “Ram Dollars” that can be used to buy things from their dean. These are given out by any teacher to any student for good behavior, but also can be taken away for bad behavior. This works well because they can receive them anywhere at any time. They get very excited to get them, especially in large quantities, as my sister said. She also does little things in the classroom, like “Fun Fridays”, table points, and extra computer or free time. She said it is important to switch up the rewards so they don’t get sick of them. This answered my other question of giving too much away, if it comes routine and not exciting. She said she will move on with other rewards and may even bring back some old ones, but the main one she uses and that seems to work best is the school-wide “Ram Dollars.” Having a school-wide reward system also relates to building a better relationship and connection throughout the school. Students who have a strong connection with their school tend to be happier and more engaged (pg. 504). Having all the teachers work together to build a better school community can really make a difference in their student’s education.

            Overall, I feel like I have learned a lot from this interview process. The main thing that my sister stressed is that in teaching you are always learning and you may not always have the answer. It is a trial and error process, but it does get easier as years go on. I think classroom management is very important because if you don’t have control of your class, you won’t be able to get much done. You want to make it through each day with as little stress as possible, and you want to build strong relationships with your students as soon as possible. As of right now, I am not sure what grade I am interested the most in teaching, but I am excited to learn more from shadowing and student teaching in my future.

Module 3

Understanding the different concepts of learning is very important when you are a teacher. Being able to understand that students will all learn differently, remember things differently, and that there are strategies we can learn and use to help promote learning to the students is important (pg. 254). Reading on all the different kinds of consequences and conditions really makes you think and understand why teachers do the things they did when we were in school. Getting rewarded with stickers, food prizes, no homework, or extra credit all were given for a specific reason at a specific time (pg. 256). We as teachers need to learn how to give the appropriate positive and negative reinforcement so the students will learn themselves why they did right or wrong. Reading further in this chapter, I found reinforcement scheduling very interesting. It does make sense though to move from continuous to intermittent to interval and so on. This all is important because the amount that is given will influence how persistent a student will respond to it, and help find the most effective strategy to be successful with them (pg. 259). Knowing all of this can help prepare for when there is misbehavior and when negative reinforcement and punishment is needed. This is something I am nervous about because it’s hard to discipline kids who aren’t yours and try to find a way for them to understand they are wrong and how to fix the problem. The biggest take away I got from this topic was to make sure the child knows what they should be doing instead of their negative behavior to make it right.

Respect is something that needs to be taught immediately in the classroom. Without respect from every single one of your students, it is going to be very challenging to have a successful year. This chapter talked about how that the teachers just being present can lead to positive behavior versus when the teacher leaves the class or there is a substitute (pg. 271). Respect for that teacher needs to be made first. I can agree with this. I feel like there was always one student who would mess with the substitute teachers because they thought they could get away with it. Therefore, it is so important to have a strong relationship with your students that is based off respect. This respect should be encouraged always, to any adult, even when the teacher is away. I think it is important to set rules straight away with your students and keep them throughout the year, but take the year to learn what kind of reinforcements work the best and what doesn’t seem to have an effect. I have been understanding that teaching is always going to be a learning process and what may have worked for one class may not work for your class next year. I am looking forward to these challenges and working together to figure out how to do it best.