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A key element in
the decision a student makes to fully engage in the learning process is the
relationship they have with the teacher. Is their trust? Is their respect? Does
the student feel valued?
Step One: Know the Audience
- Names
- Background Questionnaire
- interest
- goals
- values
- strengths
- weaknesses
- content knowledge
- Ice Breakers:
http://www.eslflow.com/ICEBREAKERSreal.html
http://712educators.about.com/cs/icebreakers/a/icebreakers.htm
- Writing Analysis.
Writing can tell you a lot
about the students’ readiness level, organizational skills, thinking processes
and the degree of care they take in their work.
- Skills and Strategies Assessment
- note taking
- textbook reading
- study strategies
What do we Want Students to Learn?
Ask the questions:
- Is my curriculum, instruction, and assessment designed
and practiced in a way that is truly focused on students’ learning?
- Am I engaging my students in learning activities that
help them to truly build their own understanding?
- Am I sure about the few things I really want my students
to learn?
- Have I clearly shared the learning goals for the course
with my students, so that they can actively participate in achieving them?
- Am I engaging them in inquiry about a topic that they
truly care about, that I care about, and that ultimately is at the heart of
the discipline I teach? These would be the underlying principles of the
course.
- Am I practicing learning-centered assessment, involving
my students in their own assessments based on criteria that are clearly
articulated? ( Project Zero, Harvard University)
Teachers should develop and post the most
important questions to be answered in this course and make clear to students why
these are the crucial questions. These questions tend simply to be great
questions that often are at the heart of disciplinary inquiry and beg for an
ever more articulate and deep response.
If you can identify the four to eight central
questions that you feel would ultimately benefit your students in their
learning, then you can use those central questions to guide or map the journey
of your teaching and their learning throughout the semester.
Motivation—the
tools that best help the learner to engage in active learning—resulting in the
acquisition of new skills and knowledge
The Keys to
Motivation
(based on Synthesis of research on Strategies for Motivating
Students to Learn by Jere Brophy, MSU)
Use of Emotion
- Personal connection and relationship
- Nurturing, acceptance and respect
- Positive and constructive feedback
- Energy and passion for what you teach
- Setting high expectations—challenging students
- Setting goals of moderate difficulty
- Selection of course topics with emotional connection
- Addition of emotion to ordinary teaching and learning
Generative Topics
- Topics students can contribute to from their backgrounds
and experiences
- Topics students care about
- Topics that are authentic—real world
- Topics that students are committed too
Use of Feedback
- Positive
- Constructive—requiring acknowledgement by the students
of how they will use the feedback
- Continual
- Self-initiated—self assessment
- Peer initiated
- Genuine
Use of Structure: recognition of the
limitations of the learners and designing ways for them to succeed
- Attendance policy
- Late for class policy
- Late work policy
- Classroom behavior expectations
- Sensitivity to attention span
- Regular—short term assessment
- Ongoing review
- Due dates and interim due dates
- Use of revision as a regular part of instruction
- Use of lecture outlines or distribution of lecture notes
- Quizzes
Factors that Affect
Student Motivation
Expectancy X Values Theory (Jere Brophy,
Educational Leadership)
- Task effort equals the degree to which one expects to be
able to perform successfully if they apply themselves
- Degree to which students’ value participation in the
task itself
- The benefits or reward the completion of the task will
bring
The theory assumes:
- No effort will be expended for task that have no
valued outcome
- People do not invest effort in valued tasks in which they are convinced
they cannot succeed even with great effort
Preconditions for
Motivation
- Supportive environment
- Appropriate level of challenge
- Meaningful learning outcomes
- Moderation of use on any given motivational strategy
Achieving Motivation
- Achieving success not avoiding failure
- Goals of moderate difficulty
- Serious commitment
Efficacy Perceptions
- Students must believe they have the ability to complete
the task
- This belief translates into greater persistence and
effort
Causal Attributions
Program for success
- start at the appropriate level
- move in small steps
- give adequate preparation at each step
- allow for revision
- allow for practice time
Teach goal setting
- very short term goals—narrowly focused
- challenging goals
- detailed feedback
- comparison of work with meaningful standards
Recognize Linkages
Between Effort and Outcome
- We are all good at different things
- Focus on mastery not comparison to others
- Connect amount of practice to outcomes
- Stress that skill development is incremental
Provide Remedial
Socialization
- A method for discouraged students
- Performance contracts
- Mastery learning
- Paper revision
- Test retakes
Give Students Some
Control over their Learning
- Input to course policies like attendance,
late work, late for class
- Input to guidelines for classroom discussion
procedures
- Give some say in the assignments students do
to demonstrate their learning
Other Suggestions
- Use rewards such as food, privileges,
symbolic rewards (congratulations cards), and time-off from class
- Be careful of the use of competition—if
students feel they don’t have a real chance to win they usually will not take
part. Use teams and levels of attainment rather than beating another person or
team.
- Try novelty, dress up-role play or even using
strange things to help you teach
- Use games such as “Jeopardy” or “Who wants to
be a Millionaire”
- Keep the students a little off balance, a
little uncertainty can help keep attention
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