Monday, March 22, 2010
Motivation
Some say that relevance is the key to motivating students in learning. By connecting learning in the classroom to lives outside of the four walls of the school building, it is going to make learning more interesting for students. Is there an experience in your education (elementary, middle, or high school) that you can recall where the relevancy of the unit/project had an impact on your motivation? How has relevance played a role in classes you have taken and how did that level of relevance impact your motivation for learning?
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I strongly agree that relevance of material is a motivator for students to learn. An experience in my high school days comes to mind where the teacher did not discuss relevance and it caused the students to lack participation and motivation for the course. The course was for advanced math (Geometry-Trig-Analysis) and the teacher was known for lacking in communication/instruction skills. As students, we were frustrated with the tough material and the teacher. When we wanted to know the relevance of the class material, the teacher did not say how it was useful to us in every day life and refused to discuss the issue. The teacher made us less motivated to participate and learn the information by not relating the course material to students' lives, resulting in most of the students despising the class.
ReplyDeleteI think a big motivator with students is by making it revelant to everyday life. I agree with Nelia, math teachers are sometimes the worst at this. I have also had math teachers who don't know how to answer when students ask why they need to know it or when they will use it in 'real-life.' I took one class in high school called Independent Living and in this class we had a project where everyone had to plan their future wedding. This was a fun activity for girls, but not so much for boys because they weren't really interested in it. It would have been much more relevant to them if their assignment was to plan building a house or something. In this class we went through lot of things we will have to know for our futures and it was a fun class because it was relevant to our lives. I think making projects and units relevant to students lives, they will be more acceptable to learning.
ReplyDeleteIn school I always was more motivated to do science experiments because I actually got to see how things were done and try new things to find out the best way that worked. I am not actually interested in science topics, but the way that the class was designed made it interesting. Getting to test new things, and come up with our own theories and questions and then testing those was always a lot of fun. I think that I learned some really great things during these times because it taught me to be persistent in my learning and not to just accept the first answer I get as the tell-all answer that will work for everything.
ReplyDeleteI think that another reason that the science experiments were so good for my learning is because I could relate them to real world situations, such as seeing which SPF works better using SPF beads. This was very relevant to me because skin cancer is a very serious disease that happens to run in my family, so getting some real world experience and knowledge on a preventative measure really motivated me to pay attention to this experiment and take all that I could away from it.
It students do not see any relevance to what they're learning, you know they're thinking "I won't ever even use this when I'm older.." That is one thing we do not want students to think! By making learning relevant to everyday life can really help spark student interest. I had one experience in my senior year English class that I knew would be relevant to my life after high school. We were learning how to write a ten page, research paper about a famous author. I knew I had better learn to do things right with this paper, because I knew I would be having to do a lot more when I got to college. Since I knew I was going to have to write many more papers, I was motivated to try my best on the first long paper I ever had to write.
ReplyDeleteAmanda, I agree with you about giving the boys a different option when it comes to planning something. I mean, there may be some guys who would love to plan their future wedding, but I couldn't see a room full of guys raising their hands eager to plan their wedding. Maybe, the teacher could just put both options out there (builing a house and planning a wedding) and a student, girl or boy, could choose whatever one he or she wants to write about.
ReplyDeleteI believe relevance is one of the biggest factors for motivation. Mrs. Evans was just talking to me about how the children need to know why they are doing something to make it relevant and be motivated to do it. She said you have to sell the idea to the students and I totally agree. I was motivated in a sewing class in high school because after we proved we could do the basic skills she let us tackle our own projects and helped us when we needed it. Because we could make something we actually cared about many of us created huge projects for ourselfs and made some really neat stuff. One girl made a dress, a guy made a pair of pants and I made a set of quilted beach bags for my friends. It was fun.
ReplyDeleteIt is also very important to point out why things are relevant. I can remember in math thinking, when am I ever going to use this. I'm going to be a fashion designer, I don't need to know algerbra. Well I later found out in that career math is pretty important and on another note, I chose to be a teacher and I need to know math. If you can at least give real life practical uses for the information the children will be more likely to stay motivated through it.
ReplyDeleteStehpanie- I've had that same conversation with Mrs. Evans and it makes SO much sense. If they don't know what they are looking for, or why they are doing, they don't seem nearly as interested in doing what you are trying to do with them! I noticed that even when I was teaching my own lesson. It's true for me too, if I know what a teacher expects me to get out of something, I am much more likely to pay attention and pull things from what they are saying. If I have no idea where a teacher is going with something though, then I just kind of stop paying attention and doing my own thing.
ReplyDeleteBPanther, I agree with your statement about how science classes tend to be more enjoyable due to the class participation and science projects. I don't ever remember disliking a science class because of the constant activities, even though I was not particularly great at the subject. I think this, again, shows just how important class participation is in motivating students, even if the students are unaware of it.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that science classes tend to be more enjoyable because of the content and the activities you have available to do in those classes. Sadly, not every class is like this. Sometimes the only way you can teach something is by lecturing. Even though this is boring, teachers still have to find a way to make it relevant to the students because otherwise they won't learn anything. Sometimes I think one of the parts that is going to be the hardest in being a teacher is finding different ways to make certain content relevant to students. I think motivating students in general is going to be one of the hardest things to do in teaching, but making the class relevant is a good start.
ReplyDeleteRelevance is a very key element of motivation. If the students don't recognize the connection between the content and their real lives, they tend to not take it seriously or care that they might actually use it later in life. I didn't actually take a class with this professor, but a few of my friends are taking their math reasoning class with a certain professor. They are required to read articles and write a 1 page reaction to them each week. They are only worth a couple of points, so it is almost not worth it. The problem they are having is that writing a paper is in no way related to how good they are at teaching a particular math problem. The purpose and the assessment do not match up, so it makes it difficult to make yourself do the assignment. If you are given an assignment to teach a unit to your peers, you would be more motivated because it is not only what you are going to do following college, but it is very relevant and relates to what the professors are supposed to be teaching you.
ReplyDeleteI agree that relevance and motivation will be two of the most difficult components of teaching. Management will be a close third. However, if the content is relevant and the kids are motivated, management will not be as much of a problem.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I agree with what is being said of relevance. It is extremely important that students understand why it is they are learning the material, not only can it motivate them, but helps them make connections. Today was the first day of my experience and it is apparent that Mrs. Lockhart is making a point of making the material relevant. Before the math activity students were to share with a close partner about how each of them used math during the weekend. The point clearly being that math is everywhere. If this is understood and conceptualized by every student then i can definitely see this as a motivation factor, and it clearly shows that they are making connections of math to their individual lives outside of school. This may be a reason for students struggling with some mathematic concepts later in their schooling. For example, in high school math when learning about sin, cosine, and tangent. Off the top of my head i cannot think of a time when a student will use this in day to day setting. Although it is apart of the curriculum and must be learned it may be hard for students to find its relevance. Am i off base? Personally, if i know that i will use the information more than once, or can find meaningful connections to my life, i feel it necessary to fully understand and learn the information.
ReplyDeleteFor most people relevance is always an important part of learning. I am always asking myself how is this relevant to life outside of school or why am I even learning this? I agree with many of you above that math is a very hard class to find relevance in. In one of my math classes in high school it was all about functions and statistics and I had a very hard time with it. I asked my teacher how what we were learning was relevant to the outside world. Sometimes she had a good answer and sometimes she didn't so relevance is a never ending battle. If something has no relevance I have a hard time motivating myself to do the assignment or learn the material. I think as a elementary teacher relevance is one of the most important tools for motivation. Otherwise students are not going to want to learn anything. Either as a teacher or a student relevance should be incorporated in almost everything you teach or learn. Now that I am in college I know almost everything I learn is relevant to my own teaching someday but sometimes it is good to know the professor will still discuss the relevance of something therefore I feel more motivated.
ReplyDeleteThe textbook written by Jeanne Ellis Ormrod that we use for Learning and Instruction in Classroom Contexts explains on page 353, that in the classroom, teachers will need to model a variety of behaviors throughout the day. Students will only imitate what we do if they believe our behaviors will truly be useful and productive. Effective teachers logically explain the usefulness of each lesson taught to students to motivate them to acquire the knowledge and skills we are teaching in the classroom. Dr. Rule teaches Elementary Curriculum and she models for her college students the effectiveness of using creative hand-on activities to motivate students to imitate and acquire skills to learn about various subjects through fun and educational activities. The Great Barrier Reef project can instill in students the importance of protecting our natural habitat to ensure survival of the various species that live among the Great Barrier Reef. This critical information given to students can motivate them to be proactive in the practices of advocating to preserve natural habitats for animals in other parts of the world as well.
ReplyDeleteI believe that if you don't have relevance to something you are going to be teaching, it may not be worth the time. I think that if a student really wants to learn something, there is usually a purpose to it. I think that you should always make sure you are teaching everything for a purpose in life. If you don't make things interesting but also relevant for the students, they will get bored fast and they will not enjoy your lesson as much.
ReplyDeleteI really have to agree with marvetsr on this particular topic, "if you don't have relevance to something you are going to be teaching, it may not be worth the time." Everything that we teach should have relevance to it. If you must teach a topic that you know students will not think it is relevant to them, somehow relate it to them so that they will understand its importance. I know that I really like to study history. When I was in high school, we studied World War 2, which got me really motivated to learn more because I was writing out my family history for my dad. Through information that I was taught by an amazing teacher I had, I was able to connect it to my family history that I was writing out. It is always important to find relevance in something that you plan to teach.
ReplyDeleteI think that when you teach something that you need to have relevance otherwise the students may not want to listen, because they don't think it's important to their life. When you relate something yo your students, they become more engaged and will want to know more about it. I've also heard in psychology classes that if you relate something to the students then they will be able to recall the information better.
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