Motivation Conversations

This blog is come of my additions to conversations that I have been reading in the blogosphere regarding my inquiry…

…Recognizing how to foster what student’s naturally want to do and think will get you ahead in the classroom.  Realizing that there is so much going on in their minds already and using that to get somewhere, rather than trying to redirect their minds somewhere they are not ready to go is something I am going to be working on this upcoming school year. 

…Celebrating students’ failures and helping them see how they can learn from them seems to be this amazing idea that celebrates the fact of being human in general.  Giving students the example of actually failing and falling, not telling them that failing is bad and is unacceptable.  Giving them the opportunity to fail and then succeed by learning from that failure is so important.  This seems to be something many teachers forget.  In the real world, you do get second chances and opportunity to make up for mistakes you make.  Giving them chances and choices helps them succeed even after they leave your classroom.  If they only get one chance to show what they know and they don’t do well, how the hell are they ever supposed to grow?

…Modeling behavior that you want to transfer to your students is so important.  Owning mistakes and explaining to students how you got yourself out of them or moved forward from them will help them see that making mistakes is a part of human nature.  This works much better than just telling them that it is ok to make mistakes.  Model the behaviors yourself. 

…I love the idea of actually teaching students how their brains work and ways to get the most of what they have (literally what they have in their skull).  Teaching them that if they use their brains in specific ways, just like if they use their bodies in exercise, their brain will grow; not in size, but in knowledge.  They will literally get smarter.  Fostering that love of learning, is something that can be put on the back burner, but is one of the most important parts of education.  This sounds funny, but really diving into what happens to your brain literally when you succeed, or when you fail and how you react to it.  I like the idea of helping them understand the options they have for reacting and how which one they choose affects their brains differently.  I helped teach a course on anti-bullying practices and a large part of this course was teaching kids about what happens in the brain.  What chemicals are released when and what they do to how you think.  There were supplementary videos that went along with the program.  There was a brain that sang and talked about the different parts of it.  It sounds really weird, but it got the students attention.  It made them laugh, made them interested, and helped them remember that these things were going on in their own brain. 

Motivation Day!

So today we got into the "not so fun" conversation of teacher pay and the "teacher as martyr" topic as it relates to motivation. The question was asked, "If our state passes the teacher raise (either 6 or 11%), would that motivate us to keep teaching?" The majority of us agreed that a raise wouldn't make us love teaching more, necessarily. But it might get us closer to that "sweet spot" in our salary: the point at which the worker is no longer concerned about money, and is paid enough to be motivated. But honestly, the past two weeks' discussions have been extremely motivating for me. Maggie posted about the free write demo and the soundtrack demo - two very motivating activities. And the fact that I'm currently in the position to explore education from the position of a student is very motivating because I know I'm going to provide some awesome instruction in the Fall. Once I sit down to plan out my semester, I will be able to BE that "positive, joyful" teacher that kids need in order to be motivated themselves, which in turn motivates me as the teacher.


Our other point of inquiry is students' motivation with unfamiliar texts. Well for homework over the weekend, we had a lengthy reading and it was an unfamiliar text for me. I could certainly understand it (for the most part), but it was not a pleasant read; it was repetitive and at times difficult to comprehend. And guess what? I didn't want to finish. I was unmotivated. I skimmed through it and did my homework, but I did everything I could to just be DONE with it. This was good practice for me as a teacher, though, to experience interacting with an unappealing text. It helped me understand that as a teacher YES I will possibly assign some difficult reading because it may be necessary at some moments. But what will we do with that text (especially if I know it's a tough read for my kids)? I think what felt good for me when I came into class today is that the teacher hadn't "forgotten" about the reading; I was held accountable for it. But I was also not quizzed on it. I was simply asked to share my opinion about it, and that was enough. I felt validated for my efforts, even if they weren't 100% voluntary. I'm glad I was reminded of that lesson today.

Free Writing and Soundtracks

I think the two demos today really honed in on the motivation we have been discussing.

Using a free write activity before starting on a formal or creative writing project can definitely lead to motivation. The students spend their time writing without really thinking, and then they can go back and perhaps choose something that they've written to continue. This is huge for the students! Instead of have the teacher say "ok, I need a five paragraph essay about _________," the students have the option to pick what they write about. As I mentioned before, when the students can pick their topic, they tend to be more motivated to do it well. (I completely understand that there are going to be times when the teacher HAS to say "we need a five paragraph essay about ______," but I think the more free will that the students are given to write about a chosen topic, the easier and better the writing becomes.)

I think it's the same thing about creating a soundtrack. This, I feel, is a genius activity. It gets the students to really think about what they are doing, and better yet - they have to defend it. The students  get the practice of persuading/defending/rationalizing/etc without even realizing they are doing it. This is a unique way to test a student's understanding and reasoning process!

I feel like a lot of the demos we have been exposed to hit on motivation in some way. I believe it was Karen (but I may be wrong) who said "why would we assign something we don't want to grade?" These demonstrations show us unique and fun ways to "test" the students, and a lot of times the students don't even know they're being tested.

Community

The motivation that I felt today was more than I could handle emotionally.  One of the biggest aspects of motivation that I have been reading about is the aspect of community and fostering relationships in the classroom to enhance motivation.  I have to say that this has been completely evident for me as I get to know my classmates and instructors in the past seven days.  I feel excited and inspired to, not only, plan for next year, but continue my own writing.  I feel so lucky to be a part of the Summer Institute and embrace this writing lifestyle.   I blame the strong connections and friendships I have made in this short time as having a large impact on this motivation.

This is something I am going to be working on in the upcoming school year.  Giving students time to just be together.  For example, today during the writing marathon (I know we were supposed to be writing) but my group (Emilia, Katie, Jessica, and Karen) did more making, experiencing, and bonding than writing.  I think allowing that leeway and maintenance time for students is one of the most important aspects of motivation for them.  Allowing them to build meaningful relationships with their classmates will help them feel connected and allow for them to put more energy into learning rather than trying to feel accepted.

I am interested in hearing ways that others have helped build relationships in their classrooms and how they have seen this connection to motivation?

Revolution for the Tested...Evolution of a Teacher

Today was a huge day in Summer Institute. We had three demos that fostered deep discussions about our classrooms and ourselves as teachers. My demo was first...so I finally got to explore with the group my inquiry into standardized testing. The first activity I did really revealed what these tests do to students' motivation. As soon as I began to read the test-mandated directions ("We are now going to take the benchmark for English II..."), I saw a huge shift in the participants...my peers and colleagues. They felt the immediate "shut down" that I witness every semester with my students. But the most surprising part of that moment was that I also shifted. I immediately shut down into "test administrator" mode and was no longer the fun-loving peppy teacher that I usually am. I had no expression on my face and was unwelcoming to questions from the "students" (participants).


Through our discussion we learned that the tests themselves are inauthentic experiences for students...and we all know that anything "fake" does not go over well with kids. I shared with the group that my best readers (those students who avidly read on their own free time - and even on MY time when they were supposed to be doing work) were the students who performed the best on the EOC this past June. But then Steve mentioned that his absolute best reader in his class one year BOMBED the reading test. This seemed counterintuitive (to me as I listened to this anecdote), but Steve learned (by asking the student) that the student simply rushed through the test in order to continue reading her book. This proves that these tests are not "authentic" reading experiences. Even an avid reader understands and that this "passage" was not meant to be enjoyed or even understood. (The student may have just not cared about her grade or may not have understood that this possibly affects her grade...but, that is out of our control as teachers).


Steve's anecdote also shows that NO MATTER WHAT WE DO AS TEACHERS....students are going to do whatever they want on these tests. They will either try their absolute best, and pass or fail. Or guess all the answers, and pass or fail. They might sleep for part of it and then try their best after they wake up. But somehow these tests are a reflection of the teacher. This is backwards.


I am embarking on a new journey with my upcoming students starting in August. I want to foster a community of deep thinkers, readers, and writers. And we'll deal with the test when it gets here.

Inquiry, Wobbling, and Unfamiliar Topics

Sometimes I think I try to hard... I was sitting here thinking about how to link inquiry, wobbling, and my question of unfamiliar topics and motivation, when it dawned on me: they all fit together seamlessly.

How can we get students to become more comfortable with unfamiliar topics? Introduce them to different genres. Teach them the "methods" behind dissecting genres, and then allow them to try it for themselves. This will absolutely create some wobbling. As the topic is unfamiliar to begin with, students will inherently feel as they are out of their comfort zone. They will probably resist at first, as most people do when they are forced to do something they have never done before. I feel like students will go through the process that Beth, Nicole, and Amy did in our reading last night: they will resist, go through some "crisis" (as it was described a couple times), and eventually walk away with a new perspective. 

How does this fit in with inquiry? It is essentially the backbone of inquiry. When you participate in an inquiry-driven activity, you are not given rules. You are free to mess and muck around and see what happens. Although the students will have the process, they are not given the parameters of their different genres. They have to mess and muck around and find out how different parts fit into their genre (things like purpose, audience, etc). This will cause an incredible amount of wobbling at first, especially for students who don't like to feel out of control. The students who tend to be a bit more OCD and, for lack of a better phrase, need the "cookbook style" of teaching will absolutely have a hard time with this. Again, I feel this wobbling will decrease as the project moves on.

The last part is motivation. How can we get students to be motivated to participate in such a "wobbly" activity? I think the answer is that we allow them to choose. The students must absolutely be taken through the process with some known genres, but once it's time for them to embark on their own project, it's theirs. They have ownership over their project, and they control where the project goes. This tends to motivate students to maybe try a little harder and do a little bit better.

Although the process is not always linear, I think this sums up what I have said:

Wobble... This word and the idea of it really got me thinking today.  I feel like wobble is good and we should embrace it, but it is not an easy task.  I read a quote today that I think embodies this idea:

 "In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure that you are traveling in a wrong path." - Swami Vivekananda

I think seeing wobbling as this will help me in the future when faced with things that make me feel uncomfortable and uneasy.  These are things I know I should dive into and just experience, but again, it is very difficult.  This got me thinking about all of the expectations that we put on our students and how they must feel when faced with something that makes them wobble.  I saw a direct link to motivation here. Often, if I am in a situation where I feel wobbly I often back down and shy away from it.  I don't want to put as much effort into it because I don't get it or can't figure it out.  I get frustrated and then my motivation is very low.  This probably happens with our students more frequently than we think.

 I think if we present things in the right way and allow students time to recognize their wobbliness and work through it, that is when learning is present.  Giving students time...Giving students time... Giving students time.... I repeat this because I realize this is an area where I am wobbly.  I am always ready to move on even when my students might not be.  What would happen to motivation if we give students time to recognize their wobbliness and work through it?