Motivating For Testing
In this blog post she talks about her visit to Robert F. Kennedy Community school in Los Angeles. During her tour of the New Open World(NOW)Academy she went into Mrs. Willard's 2nd grade classroom. Mrs. Willard's classroom was filled with cheer but one thing that stood out on the wall was a large paper tree filled with red paper apples. Mrs. Willard told them that each student had an apple for dedications. Mrs.Carrillo stated that the best thing about the apples was that Mrs. Willard had each student dedicate their work for the standardized test to them. They were also acknowledging the ones who loved and cared for them with the apples. They were committing to do their best for them and it helped to bring family and community into the school. Mrs. Carrillo had stated in an earlier blog how the flaw with standardized testing was that students needed to be motivated to do their best. With what Mrs. Willard did with her students and the dedication apples has created them to be motivated to do their best for those that love and care for them. Having them posted on the wall makes it a constant reminder for the students to do their best everyday. I posted a comment to Mrs. Carrillo and thanked her for sharing the idea of the dedication tree. I also asked her what kinds of techniques she used in her classroom to help keep kids motivated. I included my email in the post so hopefully I will hear back from her.
One Project, Nine Ways
When I went to Mrs. Carrillo's blog this week I was excited to see that she had commented me back and that she had also written a blog post in response to my question on what kind of techniques she used to keep kids motivated. In her comment back to me she said that she uses candy as motivation, for example she said she introduced test day lollipops in her classroom. She also said that she gives students the freedom to pick how they would like to complete their assignment. She goes on to further explain her method in her blog post "One Project, Nine Ways.
She tries to avoid boring assignments so this is one of the solutions she came up with. She gives the students nine different choices of how they want to complete the assignment she gives them. They have to meet to requirements for the information that she wants but other than that they can add their own creative flair. She does make then pick 3 different ways to complete the assignments so that they are not alway doing their favorite and it helps them to become more well rounded. She calls it tic-tac-toe She also covers how to grade nine different types of projects fairly. She uses the rubric to ask for exactly what you want. Then all students are beings assessed for the same thing and it doesn't matter what approach they took to answer the question, as long as they answered it. I think that what she does with allowing the students to complete the project nine different ways allows kids to be more creative in their assignments. I commented on her new blog post and thanked her for answering my question and sharing her motivational techniques. I also said that I bet it makes grading somewhat fun when you get to see your students' personality shine through their work. I really enjoyed visiting Mrs. Carrillo's blog History, Education Technology and Beyond and will continue to visit and read more of her post in the future.
As I read your posts I winced at what these teachers are doing. I don't believe that extrinsic motivations serve our students well. In fact there are a lot of people much smarter than me that would say the same thing. Take a look at this book by Alfie Kohn: http://www.amazon.com/Punished-Rewards-Trouble-Incentive-Praise/dp/0618001816
ReplyDeleteYour school library may have it for you to check out. If not, you should definitely request they get it. :)
The real problem that students have with the high stakes test is the irrelevancy and waste of time they are. The one thing that our wonderful politicians forgot to consider when they designed these tests was that our students are smart enough to realize they don't mean anything to them. Unfortunately we are going to be stuck with them a little while longer...
Two comments:
ReplyDelete1. Your experience reveals that having an audience influences the writer. That is a powerful argument for being a blogger. I hope you will be a blogger and that your students will also.
2. Mr. Chamberlain a case for a different take on extrinsic motivations and decries the "irrelevancy" of the testing processes that consume the time of teachers and students without adding a bit to learning. Perhaps it would be better to fight rather then letting students feel better about the tests! We really do need to focus on what we actually want students to know, be able to do and have experienced rather than some tests that are the product of a burp-back educational philosophy where quick counts of burps are critical to the process.This is another argument for blogging. You connect with people from all over the world, some of whom are bound to have different points of view. That should help you to always to look at questions, opportunities and issues from many aspects.
I am delighted that you will continue participating in this exchange with other teachers.
Mr. Chamberlain thank you I will definitely check that book out, it sounds interesting. I am still baffled at how to truly motivate students. I feel that a mix between extrinsic and intrinsic motivational tools is realistic. I am personally motivated because I want to do well and learn for myself but I also want to be a good role model for those around me and make those that care about me proud. So I am somewhat motivated intrinsically and extrinsically. I personally know this kid who is very smart but just will not do his work.He has no motivation doesn't matter what you do he even said he needs to get someone to sit there and "beat him over the head" to make him do his work.I think that it is up to that person to have the drive to want to learn and do well. I believe that we all posses this drive but some of us find it sooner than others.
ReplyDeleteDr. Strange I also feel that we should teach students what we want them to know and experience . I am a victim of burp-back education. I would just learn it for the test then forget it and I do not want that type of learning to continue. I will continue to explore all different kinds of blogs and try and learn all I can from others opinions and views on different situation. I will look at it as learning from others experiences so that I can then formulate my own opinions and have my own experiences.