Recently in Teaching Category

Drop out rates In American Cities

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            What are you going to do with your life? How are you going to get there? Why? These are questions that are presented to teens of all ages, backgrounds, socioeconomic status, and race are presented with all over the country. But what are the answers to these questions? Do these answers matter if our basic education is not being delivered?  Due to the recent publicity of high school drop out rates in American I came to ask myself why high school students drop out. Many of the ninth graders will express their desire to attend a college, or have a career; but why do they not succeed. There are many hypotheses' that elaborate on this idea, and president Obama actually has a working goal to solve this problem.  Personally I think motivation could be behind this idea. Motivation of the teachers, students and their parents could be the reason,

            In the article listed at the bottom of the page discusses the problems faced in our country with not only drop out rates but also the idea of students graduating when expected.  This article looks at the potential problems that could elicit this behavior of dropping out focusing on city school. The article states that there is a 50-50 chance of a student graduating on time in a city school-fewer than 40 percent of the largest city school district are graduating their students on time; Baltimore-38.5 percent, New York- 38.9 percent, and Detroit 21.7 percent. Personally I feel as though this could be caused by the attention to teaching stypes that we discusses in class. If we remember back to the movie we were to watch a couple weeks ago "Stand and Deliver" we observed some teachers that weren't dedicated to altering their teaching styles in order to meet the needs of the students. What is your opinion as to why the graduation rate is so low in American cities and continuing to fall as we speak?

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/03/11/hundreds-of-students-rally-lawmakers-save-our-schools/

This article is from the Des Moines Register and covers the rally of Des Moines area students at the state capitol on March 11th. The article states that roughly 500 students used their day off from school to hold a rally in support of funding education for the arts at the capitol. The students played as loud as they could in the middle of the building and to get the attention of state lawmakers. They demanded that they would not be overlooked, and they weren't. The goal was to persuade lawmakers to give arts education the same amount of money that it has used to grow over the past couple of years. Since the budget cuts are so large and affecting nearly every area of the state budget students, teachers, and parents are banning together to make sure they are not on the chopping block. If funding gets cut the cost for schools to continue educating the arts skyrockets to $70 million dollars annually. No school in the Des Moines area, or the state for that matter, can afford to keep the arts alive at that cost.

I thought the rally was actually really cool. Especially that the students would take their free day to protest, it really shows how important it is to them. What do you think?

KC School District Closures

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The Kansas City, MO school district announced this morning that the plan to close almost half of its schools passed the school board vote.  The school district, which is on the brink of bankruptcy, will close 29 of its 61 schools.  These closures will cost 700 jobs, including 285 teachers.  This will leave 18,000 students to attend 32 schools that may be k-12.  The major restructuring is causing many angry parents to speak out and consider home schooling.
Teachers are also feeling the heat, because many of the teachers will be required to reapply for their jobs.  
The closure and combining of schools is something that we are familiar with here in Iowa - with many of the smaller schools being consolidated into larger schools to help delegate resources.  In KC, however, this may cause schools to become considerably larger.  The students will be in schools that have a higher student:teacher ratio.  
Considering the information pertaining to motivating students by having an autonomy-supportive environment and well as a competence supportive environment this consolidation may be worse for the students that believed.  With less time to devote to students, teachers will be unable to take the time to provide rationales, accept negative affect, use informational language, and nurture inner motivational resources.  The students will have lower perceived levels of autonomy.  In addition, schools that put this much pressure on their faculty will have less ability to support competence.  The teachers will have to teach to a wider range of abilities due to the large class sizes so there will little opportunity for optimal challenge.

What do you think of the consolidation of schools?  
To learn more about the specifics in KC, check out this article.

Mentors in life

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In one of my classes last week we were talking about the importance of mentors in our lives. It took me a while to think of a consistent mentor who has helped encourage me throughout my life. In essence, my experience with a mentor has revolved around persuasion techniques utilized by my mentor attempting to persuade and encourage me to continue a behavior. The textbook mentions how important coaches, parents, employers, therapists, etc. are in our lives and how such figures will always be there (for the most part) to lend a convincing hand. A lot of the time these convincing attempts serve as an efficacy booster for me, the mentee. 

I have grown up in a musical family all my life, and I have also grown up playing the violin. There have been countless times throughout my life where I have wanted to give up and quit playing the violin. These sentiments mostly burgeon from my dissatisfaction with practicing the damn instrument. But, as we all know, "practice makes perfect." Unfortunately for me, I did not want to be a "perfect" violinist, let alone become that prodigious of a player. Fortunately, however, I had a set of encouraging parental figures who have continually given me the positive feedback and support necessary for me to continue my practices, at least all throughout high school and into my first couple years in college. My parents always knew that I didn't really want to quit. They were also well aware that practicing did not come easy for me, nor did it enlighten me. But, they always found creative ways to build up my self-efficacy, with regards to my violin playing skills and habit formation. Consequently, I know have the desire and intrinsic motivation to play the violin. I have played in the UNI orchestra all but one semester and I am a violinist for a post rock instrumental band in Cedar Falls.

 

Who have been positive role models/mentors in your life? 

In what areas have they impacted you and encouraged your own self-efficacy? 

Never fail a student?

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http://farmer.newsvine.com/_news/2007/03/19/621317-students-who-never-fail-teachers-who-do

 

I found this article and thought it pertained to our class discussion on 3-2.  The article is abot the five steps a teacher must take in order to 'never have a student that fails.'.  

The five steps were as follows:  1)Explaination  2)Demonstration  3)Practical Exercise  4)Testing or Examination   5)Critique

 

I thought all of these steps really related to the term competence.  In our lecture, we discussed important environmental factors that involved one's competence.  One of these was the challenge and feedback.  In these steps, there are places for the practice (#3), challenge (#4), and feedback (#5).   Another thing we also talked about in relation to supporting onces competence, was the structure-- offering support and guidance.  Near the end of the article, the author described how he never had a student fail-- but if they didn't fully grasp the concepts from the first round (of steps 1-5) to start over until you've reached a point of success with the student.  I believe having this system is a good way to not give up on a student and just fail them.  But also, I do believe there can be an immense amount of motivation from the teacher, but what if the student has none?  What if the student has no desire to succeed?  Maybe then this system wouldn't work but a new system needs to be adapted so help change the student's mind about classwork. 

In this youtube clip, President Obama (the then Senator), addresses some restrictive policies that underlie the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, enacted by former President Bush. Prior to his presidency, Obama proposes some structural modifications to the Act. First, he asserts how the assessment plans for NCLB are inadequate and lack the teacher input. Consequently, the teachers themselves are unaware of the specific conditions and terms that underpin this policy. Then, he questions the true standardized requirements for varying schools across the states, and how there is bound to be (and already is) a divide among states for test results. Such high measures are established a priori, but so many schools are provided with insufficient resources to produce higher results, based upon the standards already in place. Thus, instead of formatting schools so that they meet a comprehensive score, each school should be monitored throughout the year in different intervals, meeting more minimal and realistic goals. Obama argues that we should recognize the differences in cognitive abilities across the states, and not set up these schools with such a policy that will doom them to failure, or so that they need to dumb down their standards just to meet a goal, however reaching that goal might be.

As a result of implementing more standardized test measures by which these schools must abide, other resources, such as the arts and music, are slowing disintegrating from within. The textbook defines autonomy as "the psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of one's behaviors." Schools should be a place in which students learn to foster their creativity and autonomy in certain aspects of their lives. If we are establishing policies that force students to take rigorous exams and cut out music and the arts, then where does that leave the students? It inevitably leads to to follow those strict rules, and inhibits their potential for pursuing domains that could allow them to flourish. We are by no means given decision-making flexibility in that systematic orientation of building a well-rounded self, as the school systems should be doing.

The main issue is that it is so difficult to administer other forms of intelligence tests that are not quantitative, objective, or standardized. Individuals might picture his or her as a disproportionate hierarchical system, with absolutely no flexibility to decide his or her educational path. As Obama mentioned in the clip, teachers had no input in this policy, so their autonomous qualities as teachers were compromised and disregarded. Although the educational system must adhere to some basic level of routine and structure, it all boils down to providing students with a genuine choice, and encouraging everybody's state of autonomy and intellectual freedom.

In what ways do you think schools could promote autonomy? Do you think the educational system could somehow effectively tap into intelligence without the use standardized testing?

I found an article that interested me on teacher evaluations. At the school mentioned in the article they are done differently than at UNI. Mid semester the teacher can choose to have the "Focus Feedback" done. About halfway through a normal class, the professor leaves and another person then leads a discussion about the class. Students are asked to critique the professors teaching style, both what the like and do not like. The information is then given to the professor, so if they choose to they can change the class for the rest of the semester.I feel like this would be really helpful, for both student and professor. If students can give input to a professor on something that could help them, competence levels would go up and so would most likely enjoyment for the class. Everyone wants to be competent in the activities we engage in, and this could only help. I know i have had classes in which i would have loved to be able to tell the professor things to change mid semester and have them actually taken into account.

 Often a professor does not know if they are getting the information across to the students, so I think this type of feedback would be useful. Feedback can be a very helpful source, in making changes for the better. Student evaluation is a good way for professors to get feedback on how well their teaching styles is appealing to and helping students learn. Performance feedback can also give the professors a sense of a job well done, if the feedback is positive, and give them something to change or think about if they are getting mostly negative feedback from students.  

            At this University only 20 professors took part in the Focus Feedback, why do you think that is?

            Why do you think so few professors at UNI do student evaluations at the end of the semester?

 

http://media.www.umdstatesman.com/media/storage/paper1351/news/2010/02/24/News/Optional.Teacher.Evaluations.Used.By.Few.Professors-3878429.shtml

 

 

Inspiring children to do good

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http://www.ted.com/talks/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html

Last week I commented on a post that focused on the website ted.com. This week I decided to go back to ted.com and see what I could find. The video that stuck out to me is the one I posted above. In the video Kiran Bri Sethi, an Indian school teacher, discusses a way to blur the lines between education and the real world. She suggests that if you teach the children through experience then they will comprehend what was learned and incorporate it into their lives outside of school. The first example she showed was having her children make small utensils all day. In her own words "they worked until their backs were broken, then they understood that child labor was unacceptable." The children took the knowledge that they had freshly obtained and translated it into their community. The children are shown advocating the importance of abolishing child labor to the adults in the community. Kiran Bri Sethi and her students decided it was time to show the rest of the schools and the rest of the community how much of a difference this type of learning can make. They marched into city buildings and took the town by storm. The city ended up closing down the busiest streets for a day each month in order to allow for children to play. The children were alloted an enormous amount of space to put on plays and use their imagination. Soon the community decided it was time to show all of India all of the power that this idea was made of. It was looked at foolishly by many school teachers. However, children embraced the idea of making a difference. In the end, all that was needed was the drive of the children. They held auctions, went door to door, and did anything that they needed to do to show that they could make a difference and would be heard. And they were. The non-believers were put to shame, they only had one question left. How are the students preforming on paper?

It turns out that the children that were involved in the program had better grades that those that were not in the program. Not only were they doing good, they were doing well. Which is just about all that a parent, educator, or citizen can ask of the children that are the future of their country.

Obviously, we are all in a class that integrates learning into our lives in a way that most of our other classes have not. So, we have all experienced a dramatic shift in types of education. How did this video make you feel? Do you think that this class, like the classes in India, blurs the line between an educational institution and the real world? Though, we are not preforming the same "do good" activities that the children in India are preforming, and I'm rather certain that Cedar Falls does not intend on closing down Hudson Road so that we can all bounce of a trampoline for the day, I still feel like the point of our hybrid classes are to learn more about how the real world reflects what we are learning.

I found this great article by Kathleen McKinney called "Encouraging Students' Intrinsic Motivation."  In this article the author gives nine different strategies that a teacher can use when trying to help motivate students.  The first is to know where the students are.  It is important to know the background about each of the students, so when making a lesson you know the appropriate level to start at.  Second, confront the monster.  This means talking to the students about motivation and the importance of learning. Third, fate does not rule.  Encourage the students so that they can have high self efficacy, try to help set the students up for success.  Fourth, gladly teach and learn.  Offer the students to give feedback about the course, so you can see how they learn most effectively. Fifth, all for one and one for all.  Make a learning community for the students; by having them work in small groups, but also have them do work individually.  Sixth, variety is the spice of life.  There can be a lot of diversity in a class room, so you need to make all things in the classroom diverse as well. Seventh, I did it my way. Give the students some control in the class, for example let them choose between assignments and pick which ones they would rather do. Eight, how many points to get an 'A'.  Some times it not always best to use a traditional grade system, encourage the students to learn and study for something other than grades.  Finally, practice what you preach.  Be a role model for the students, and have everything that is done in the classroom promote learning.


You can view this article at: http://www.cat.ilstu.edu/additional/tips/intMotiv.php .  It goes into detail more on each of the nine strategies.  I think that all nine would be great strategies that a teacher could use in their classroom. So what do you think are these nine strategies good to use in the classroom to promote intrinsic motivation?  Are there any other strategies that you can think of that could be incorporated into the classroom to help with student motivation?

Motivating students

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Have you ever found it interesting when in school, that if you were given a chance to help out (when in elementary) and leave the class (in middle to high school and now college) that you were more motivated to complete or finish that paper or learn a task.  

When I was in 5th grade, every other Friday we would have an afternoon where we could hang out, outside of the class room. Yet, in order to get that chance we had to have completed our homework and turned it in daily, been on good behavior and been to school every day. I found it really interesting when I look back on it now, but the teachers where trying to motivate us to do better and or at least the minimum in order to be able to go somewhere else in the school, or in my case the library. That is where the girls hanged out to talk and slack off; in reality we were supposed to be putting up books for the librarian.  It was an Incentive or reward, which motivated a certain behavior. I guess you can call it extrinsic motivation because we as children worked towards these goals in order to slack off later. Plus it did place some type of situational interest within us, which our textbook talks about as being a type of interest which is short term and can be seen as the shiny object that draws you in and creates a certain type of motivation or gain in knowledge. Even though situational interest is great, a teacher tries to create a more logical expectation of personal interest in a student, which is a long term interest and the student does these activates on their own accord.  Now, I was a student who did well regardless because I personally found that I wanted to achieve more than was expected for me, as well show my parents that I was a good student. I didn't receive an allowance and I didn't get a pass on my chores, but I knew in the long run that I would benefit someday from my motivation to learn. But for other students these incentives were what drove them to at least meet these requirements.

So I searched for ways to motivate students, now I understand that this list is aimed at a younger crowd, but can you imagine if these still worked for us today?

http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/rewards.htm

The list is funny to look back on, but I remember some of these working, here are a few of my favorite.

·         Take a bubble blower out at recess.

·         Free homework passes.

·         Leader for a day.

·         Earn points for class Video.

When you were a child in elementary what motivated you? What motivates you now? Were and are there rewards involved? Like an allowance or a pass of doing chores? Do you think that this reward system has or could have backfired potentially? Also, in thinking about this, our class has some fun activities and incentives as well and do you think that will affect your motivation in learning the material?

Motivating students

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Have you ever found it interesting when in school, that if you were given a chance to help out (when in elementary) and leave the class (in middle to high school and now college) that you were more motivated to complete or finish that paper or learn a task.  

When I was in 5th grade, every other Friday we would have an afternoon where we could hang out, outside of the class room. Yet, in order to get that chance we had to have completed our homework and turned it in daily, been on good behavior and been to school every day. I found it really interesting when I look back on it now, but the teachers where trying to motivate us to do better and or at least the minimum in order to be able to go somewhere else in the school, or in my case the library. That is where the girls hanged out to talk and slack off; in reality we were supposed to be putting up books for the librarian.  It was an Incentive or reward, which motivated a certain behavior. I guess you can call it extrinsic motivation because we as children worked towards these goals in order to slack off later. Plus it did place some type of situational interest within us, which our textbook talks about as being a type of interest which is short term and can be seen as the shiny object that draws you in and creates a certain type of motivation or gain in knowledge. Even though situational interest is great, a teacher tries to create a more logical expectation of personal interest in a student, which is a long term interest and the student does these activates on their own accord.  Now, I was a student who did well regardless because I personally found that I wanted to achieve more than was expected for me, as well show my parents that I was a good student. I didn't receive an allowance and I didn't get a pass on my chores, but I knew in the long run that I would benefit someday from my motivation to learn. But for other students these incentives were what drove them to at least meet these requirements.

So I searched for ways to motivate students, now I understand that this list is aimed at a younger crowd, but can you imagine if these still worked for us today?

http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/rewards.htm

The list is funny to look back on, but I remember some of these working, here are a few of my favorite.

·         Take a bubble blower out at recess.

·         Free homework passes.

·         Leader for a day.

·         Earn points for class Video.

When you were a child in elementary what motivated you? What motivates you now? Were and are there rewards involved? Like an allowance or a pass of doing chores? Do you think that this reward system has or could have backfired potentially? Also, in thinking about this, our class has some fun activities and incentives as well and do you think that will affect your motivation in learning the material?