Sunday, April 1, 2012
Motivation
Respond to this scenario: You have completed a project for a teacher that has taken you almost a month to complete. It was handed in on time, and you have waited more than three weeks to receive a grade on it. You have inquired about the grade, but have not received a response. What role does feedback play in student motivation?
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By collaborating and communicating with your students, you are able to motivate them by letting them know what needs work. If you do not respond to a student or do not communicate with them, the student(s) will start to get discouraged and sometimes start to feel like their work does not matter. Also, by not responding or communicating the students will start to "not care" meaning if you do not show that you care or are welcoming then the student may get turned off by the subject or motivation of doing their work well. I feel as teachers, it is our job to communicate with our students and try to motivate them the best that we can. We need to try to keep our students motivated so that they can learn and understand the material.
ReplyDeleteFrom personal experience as a student, I become distant with the project, the class, and the teacher. If my work is not valued I cannot respect the assignment, thus I do not appreciate the lesson. Feedback is crucial for students to evaluate their understanding, and understanding is the key to motivation. If students are not being acknowledged for their work, the message that sends is they will not be reprimanded for doing nothing. The best thing I can do as a teacher is to give valid feedback immediately after work is done. Students should know if they are on the right track, what they need to improve on, and that the teacher cares how they are doing.
ReplyDeleteI can agree with what you have said. When teachers do not grade our hard work in a timely manner, I lose interest in the assignment and in the teacher. Feedback is what helps students grow and learn. Without feedback, students will have a tough time knowing what they have done wrong and most likely, they will not improve. It is the teachers job to not procrastinate.
DeleteI agree with what you have said. When I don't receive valid feedback after an assignment or project, I don't value the assignment or project because I don't see the point in the assignment if I'm not going to get criticism on it. We need to make our students value their work and ideas by providing them with positive feedback. It also sends the message that you care as a teacher and if you care as a teacher, your students will care about their assignments and projects and try to do the best possible job they can.
DeleteI agree with your statements. When teachers don't provide timely feedback, students start to believe that their work doesn't matter. When they feel their work doesn't matter anymore then why should they put effort into anything? We need to let kids know that we value their hard work and effort.
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ReplyDeleteAmanda:
ReplyDeleteI liked that you talked about motivation from your perspective. It gievs a more in depth answer and way of thinking. I agree about giving back feedback. Students need to hear from their teachers and understand where they are in the class. By communicating with the teacher, students get a better understanding. Difintely agree with you. Nice job!
Jillian
Reply to Jillian:
ReplyDeleteI agree, that as teachers it is our job to communicate with our students. They should be motivated with positive feedback so they will want to understand the material. Not responding to students work does send the message that we do not care, and this does turn the students away from learning.
I also agree with you Amanda and Jillian! Teachers are watched in every area possible when it comes to the way they act. Part of this is if we do not respond in timely manners to our students; it will send negative impressions.
DeleteFeedback is a huge aspect of students' motivation. I have had something like this happen to me before where I’ve waited over a month to receive a grade on a huge presentation. After a while, I forget more and more details about what I presented and I care less about what grade I get. The longer a teacher takes to grade something, the less interested and anxious a child will most likely be to receive his or her grade. As teachers, we should always put the students first. I hope to be the type of teacher who is trying to stay ahead of the work. I want to give my students the best possible learning experience. Feedback should always include some positive but also constructive criticism. Hopefully my feedback to my students will motivate them to do better on their next project, paper, or presentation.
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
DeleteI like how you used a previous experience to help explain your thoughts on motivation. You make a really valid point stating that the longer it takes for a student to recieve a grade, the less the student is going to care. We need to be on top of our grading to benefit to our students.
Sara Reicks
Reply to Melissa:
ReplyDeleteI like that you pointed out how the child will get anxious for their grade. It is stressful to wonder how you are doing, and stress is not a good motivator. Its great that you want to stay ahead of the work and awesome that you want to focus on constructive criticism. Good for you!
Feedback is vital to a student’s motivation. When I have spent a lot of time on a project, I expect to get feedback within the upcoming week. Without receiving feedback, I lose motivation to participate or try on any future projects because I don’t know what I did right or what I could improve on. I think as a teacher it’s important to respond with feedback to your students right away. I had a teacher last semester who never graded the projects we turned in until a month later. It was hard to stay motivated and work on the other projects that were due because I didn’t know what I could work on to improve my grade or what I was actually doing right. As a teacher, we need to set goals or deadlines for ourselves that lay out when we will grade our students’ homework and provide them with appropriate feedback. It could be fun to make a game out of it with your students. Set a deadline when you will have everything graded and handed back to them and if you miss that deadline, you owe them some type of treat or candy. This will keep you motivated to get everything graded on time(because we don't have that much money to spend haha)and will also still motivate your students to focus on the upcoming projects because they will receive the appropriate feedback within a timely manner.
ReplyDeleteI like how you talk about setting goals and deadlines for grading student work. That way we can hold ourselves accountable for continuing to provide students with feedback and therefore encouraging and motivating them in their work. I am unsure of how I feel about telling the students about my deadlines for getting their homework back to them. Life happens and there are no guarantees in being able to consistently provide that. I don't think students should be awarded with treats every time that I miss my goal on returning homework.
DeleteMegan, I feel like exact same way with you about lack of motivation when your items aren't graded. Its a great idea as a teacher to have set goals for when you are going to have your assignments graded. It not only helps you, but also to keep your students motivated and let them know that you care about their work.
DeleteFeedback plays a critical role in motivation. If a student knows they are not going to get a grade for a long time, they are more likely to slack off in their work. Students want to know how they did on a project they spent a lot of time and effort on. Students will not take pride and work hard on their school work because they will begin to think that what ever they are doing doesn't really matter if the teacher is not taking the time to give feedback in a timely manner.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to reflect on the work that you have done is crucial for student progress. When a student isn't able to look on what they have completed, they aren't able to see the areas in which they can improve. Thus bringing down motivation in order to complete their other assignments. I've experienced this in some of my classes here at UNI. The one that stuck out the most to me, was a project that was a base for all of my other ones. We used this project throughout the semester to start our other ones, but we didn't know how we did. I found myself not wanting to do any of the other work because I felt like there was no point.
ReplyDeleteNicole Schroeder
This is a very discouraging scenario for the student. Not only is it frustrating to not receive feedback as a student for the simple reason that you are in wonder where you are standing in the class, it's also frustrating because getting feedback is the why a student learns from their mistakes.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, it is also a good situation that the student should learn to be able to learn by what they do while completing the task. Not to mention, even if the student doesn't get feedback, they should have learned something about their work ethic and their ability to perform tasks and receive instructions.
This is a two way street. The student should be accountable for creating their own feedback on their personal performance by evaluating their own potential to completing the task and how well they lived up to that potential. At the same rate, if the teacher does not give feedback in a timely manner, she can not expect the students to improve their performance at that same task.
In order for students to be motivated for the next assignment or task it is very important to get huge projects grade and feedback to the student as soon as possible. Without this reinforcement, they may feel as if they did a bunch of work for nothing and therefore will not be motivated to work hard on the upcoming assignments. A grade reassures the students and gives them more intrinsic motivation.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this scenario would cause me to "give up" on assignments that appear later in the year. I wouldn't want to put in all my effort to not get anything back. It would deflate my motivation towards completing the class. This teacher needs to realize that motivation plays a large roll in the classroom and the little things that he/she does can affect a student's motivation in large ways.
ReplyDeleteI believe that feedback plays a very essential role in motivation for students. It is also something that can easily be overlooked by teachers. Students want to know how they're doing in their classes because they want to show what they are knowledgable of and what they can do. Letting students know that they did a good job or what they need to work on or where they need a little extra help lets them know that you as their teacher value and appreciate their efforts. In other words they didn't just put forth all of their effort for "nothing" and they are rewarded by knowing that their teacher acknowledges their work and cares about how they're doing.
ReplyDeleteAs a student, I want feedback to be fairly soon after an assignment has been handed in. Feedback lets the student know how well they are performing in the class currently. The student needs to know how well they did or the assignment has little meaning. If they do not know how well they did, then the information gets lost from memory.
Delete