Holt - Chapter 11 Reflection

One of the main things that was helpful/instructive to me was the discussion in the chapter on basic human needs and the need for arousal.  I currently teach in a school where all my students have iPads – they are getting constant arousal through those little machines from group chat rooms and endless games of Mind Craft.  I would argue, as this idea is mentioned in the text – my kids are getting too much arousal.  Therefore, in many ways, I have shied away from the “flipped classroom idea” although some of my colleagues use it and are awesome teaching in that way.  In other words, I do not like facilitating all my instruction from a video I have taped or found.  Yes, some video I think is good, but for me – it becomes them sitting watching, rather than doing.  However, interestingly enough, in my classroom I am typically looking to arouse my students.  I like to make them get up, dance, make movements that mirror graphs, etc.  I also have them physically write/draw on paper rather than with their iPads.   I realized in reading this section it is almost as if I am trying to compete with the iPad to arouse my students, keep their attention and motivate them to learn a topic for which many of my students have hated during much of their tenure as public school students.  That said, I think that because I am constantly trying to arouse their brains, I am enhancing, or at least striving to, increase their time-on-task.

A second issue that has been huge for me in motivating my students is how and what my students attribute their successes and failures to.   Some of my students are in the last, or next to last math class they will take in their lives.  They walk into my class already knowing they hate math and they “suck” it at.  However, I continue to fight this idea.   One thing that helps me to get them thinking about their outcomes on quizzes, etc, is by having them answer reflection questions at the end of each exam.  These questions include things like, “What did you do to study for the test?”  “How many days were you absent from class?”  “How often did you check your homework, and use your time in class wisely to ask questions regarding your confusion?”.  After the first test, I will send them feedback regarding their grades, their reflections, and my observations of the effort  I see them putting in.  For some, this is enough to get the ship turned around, where they see a direct relationship between doing the work and getting a satisfactory grade and the opposite.  For others, and for most, by the third round, they realize that the reason why they are unsuccessful is because they are not putting in effort to yield a good learning result/outcome on the test.

Side note:

I currently teach 140 students.  A big part of me keeping my sanity is to have strict procedures and expectations of my students for how I want things done.  As I was reading in the chapter about students’ self-determination, I began to think that perhaps some of my practices are too strict and do not allow them enough self-determination, but then at the same time, what about my own sanity?  For example – letting students choose/make choices is mentioned in the book.  Grading takes me a LONG time – and I am just thinking about how to give my students choices, especially on major assignments and get them graded in an timely manner?