Yesterday in class we discussed The Glass Ceiling. Academic success is only one level of success. Teaching goal setting, performance appraisal, and self reinforcement are ways teachers can motivate students and maintain success expectations. Students' reactions to their own performance depend not just on their absolute level of success but also on their perceptions of what this level of performance means. Goal setting and making a commitment to reach them increase performance. In performance appraisal, teach students to compare their work with absolute standards or with their own previous performance rather than the performance of others. With self-reinforcement, students who have been working towards specific proximate goals and who have the concepts and language needed to evaluate their performance accurately can reinforce themselves for their progress.
I feel as though teachers need to work with their students in taking goals seriously and committing themselves in trying to reach them. I believe that students' level of success will depend not only on the difficulty of the task itself but also on the degree to which you prepare them trough advanced instruction and assist their learning efforts through guidance and feedback.
Does anyone have any other ways they might motivate and engage their students to help them become successful academically?
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3 comments:
I enjoyed reading this article because I completely agree with the points that were made. I think that setting goals are so important in all areas of life, so it's important that kids are taught how to set these benchmarks at an early age so they can take hold of it's significance. Setting goals and striving to reach them is an ability that I think should be taught to students because if they don't know how to set goals, or understand the significance in achieving them, then they'll never make any effort to do so. I also think that it's important that students set goals for themselves because that's going to motivate them to make themselves proud. This way the student is now performing assignments to reach a level of personal meaning other than doing an assignment because the teacher told them to. I think that having the students set personal goals is one of the best ways to motivate students.
I also agree that teaching goal setting is important to achieving academic success. In the third grade class I am currently doing my practicum I recently helped to prepare reading/writing resource folders for students. These folders were prepared for the new school year and icluded in them are resources students can turn to for help with reading and writing (i.e. building better word choices in writing, what makes a complete sentence, motivation for writing, brainstorming techniques, books they can go to for help like dictionaries and thesaurus, etc.) Also, included in this folder was a writing rubric. On one side of the rubric it gave the student the opportunity to assess their own work, on the other side the teacher scored their work. This particular item stood out to me because it gave students the opportunity to set goals and standards for themselves when writing and also to assess their own performance. It's interesting to see the students' responses to their own work. However, they also get the feedback from the instructor too. I thought this related to what you were talking about as a way to motivate and engage students.
I feel that the points made in this article say it all. I can not think of any other great ways for children to succeed through motivation then this one. I feel that students, and even with my own children, need goals to accomplish. Take for example adults. Most adults have goals. They can be little, such as loosing 10 pounds or quiting smoking, or they can be big, such as saving for a vacation or getting a promotion. The best way to instill a life time of achieving their goals is to start early and teach in to them when they are young. Not only are goals important but they focus on the individual student's progress not the comparison of several students to each other.
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