Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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 always felt like the things I learned in K-12 weren't relevant to my life or that I was never going to need to know what we were spending time learning about. There was one time, however, that we were learning about World War II in Social Studies and instead of just reading through our text and writing a paper about what we read, my teacher had us conduct and interview of someone who was alive during that time. I interviewed my grandpa and learned so much about him, I wasn't even aware he was in the war. It was so much easier to learn about the war after that because I tried to see it though my grandpa's eyes and I could just relate on a lot more of a personal level. So I agree that when students can relate it to their own life it is a lot easier to learn and succeed. However, it seems like those instances were few and far between. College classes are a little better because you know that you are going to need to use the information in the future. Even some of your homework that you complete will be used in your future job. It's a little easier to learn like that as well.
ReplyDeleteThroughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, I always loved it when my teachers would give me choice about which project I wanted to complete. I liked this because I could not only pick the one that interested me, but also the one most relevant to my life. One specific project that sticks out in my mind is from when I was a junior in high school and was in US History class. We were talking about Jim Crow Laws and were given many different project options to complete. I chose the option of writing my own children's book and reading it to an elementary school class. I chose this option and had a ton of fun completing it because I have always wanted to be an elementary school teacher. This book is something that I loved making and could see myself using it for my future class one day. I agree with what Ally said about college classes being more relevant since we are studying the profession that we want to do with our lives. Also, a lot of strategies our teachers use are ones that we can use in our future classrooms. There are a lot of assignments that we complete that will be extremely useful in our future classroom and that is always extra motivation for completing them to the best of my ablility.
ReplyDeleteI felt like throughout my education, it has been difficult to relate a lot of the things we were taught to real-life experiences, at least in depth. Most teachers would say a little fact like "memorizing the metric system will help you if you move to another country" which makes the information relevant, but not very realistic. It helped me see how I COULD relate some things to real life, but that didn't mean I was actually going to use it. It was always easier for me to take a new concept or idea and explore it further by doing a project, writing a paper, or reading a book that related to it. That way I could see how it is relevant and useful to other people, and how certain people could use that information.
ReplyDelete@Julie:
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that you liked choosing what assignment or project to do. I remember doing this in elementary, middle, and high school. It always made me more motivated when I had options and was able to pick the one that was most relevant to me that I found most interesting. Since I was interested in the topic or assignment, I was definitely more motivated to actually do the work to the best of my ability and enjoyed learning the material.
I agree with what Stephanie said about reading books or doing a project to make a topic more relevant to your own life. This actually reminded me of the movie, Freedom Writers. In this movie, the students are extremely interested in the Holocaust. Their teacher has them read "Anne Frank's Diary" to bring this topic to life for them. The kids also invited the person who his Anne Frank into their classroom as a guest speaker. By reading the book and having a guest speaker, the kids were more interested in what they were learning about and more motivated to learn. In my future classroom, I want to incorporate as many hands on activities, literature, and guest speakers as possible so that my kids are more motivated to learn.
ReplyDeleteIn elementary school I never liked social studies until we had to plan a trip to Canada. I was very excited to complete this project because I loved to travel and we drove in our camper everywhere we went. However my teacher did not give me a good grade on the project because I did not stay in hotels or campsites. Like we did when we traveled we would stay at Wal-Mart’s or 24 hour gas stations. It saved us money and when we were driving the next day. After that I was not motivated in social studies at all, and to this day I still don’t enjoy it. Relevance plays a key role in keeping students interested in learning. If you discourage them from being creative and relating it to their own lives they may not want to learn. On the teachers side it may take some time to do research on topics children do or ideas they come up with but I feel in order to keep children interested that this should be done.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the post above I do agree with them. Allowing children to pick different topics and activities for them to choose between is very important. Bringing in different topics from around the world really brings in different cultures for the students to learn about I feel culture is very important when teaching children of all ages. Reading different books and doing activities helps children understand the worlds outside of where they are live and their cultures. It may motivate them to do different things in the future and gives them a bigger picture of the world.
ReplyDeleteI think relevance does play a role in motivation. I have seen it and been a part of it in the classroom. I know that I have had classes where they connect what you are learning to relevant information, and I have been in a class where they did not connect it to anything related to our lives. I think it is much harder to not only be motivated but also to memorize and keep the information that you are learning in your long term memory.
ReplyDeleteOne class that I took last year they didn't really relate anything that we were learing about teaching to what could be happening in the classroom and what we could encounter. On the flip side, I have taken a class where the professor was very good at realting what we are learning to not only personal experiences (I believe is relevant) and to ourselves. I have learned so much from that class that I will be able to take with me into my classroom.
Overall, relevant information and relating content to outside the class will help to motivate ourselves, and our students as well as help them to memorize the information we are teaching about.
For my second blog post I wanted to add that relevance can be applied to history classes as well even though it does not seem like that would be the best option. In one of my history classes in high school the teacher always related economic issues, president solutions, wars, etc. to what was going on in the world today. It made a big different being motivated to understand what history was like back then. We could compare and contrast history to what we were going through in the world today. Also, it made class much more interesting.
ReplyDeleteSome 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?
ReplyDeleteI think revelance plays a huge role in motivation in the classroom. If the students can't relate to what they are learning in the classroom, they won't feel motivated to do the project or to participate in the classroom or lecture.
I know that when I was in elementary, middle, and high school, I felt like nothing I was learning I would use later in life. Looking back on it, I've realized that I was half-right. There have been a lot of things that I learned in K-12 that I have used now but there have been a lot of things that I still don't see why I had to learn those things.
Now that I'm in high school, I'm realizing that what my instructors are teaching me in classes I will be able to use. It will all help me succeed in life as a teacher. I have had a few classes since coming to UNI that I've wondered how they will help me in the future and my grades have reflected it. I feel motivated more if I can relate what I'm learning to what I am going to do with my life. I feel like children feel the same way.
I agree with the people above who stated that they feel like relavance and motivation go hand and hand. Without things been relavate to what children are doing in their daily lives, they will not feel the need to be motivated to succeed in what they are working on. I think that also relates to life in general not just in the classroom. People feel more motivated to do something if it is relavant to their lives at that moment.
In my experience in my personal educational life I have noticed that in the earlier grades there were not very many assignments that motivated me due to a personal connection from my personal life to my school life. There was one time in fourth grade however, where i remember an assignment that I did enjoy because of a connection. The assignment was to write book reviews and book reports on different books we have read. To me the book I chose was Shiloh and I wanted to do this book because my dog was a beagle. In the assignment we were to draw a picture of the book and then write a paragraph about the book. This was exciting to me because I got to draw a picture of my dog Hope for the story. My dog looked exactly like Shiloh so I really enjoyed it. Another time was during high school. We were to write a parody on a famous poem or song. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to rewrite The Night Before Christmas with my family's favorite Day After Thanksgiving sales. To this day it is my favorite assignment that I have ever done. It was so much more fun to write about something that I knew and I feel as if you do find more motivation as a student when you have items that connect to your own personal life. This is effective because it is fun to write about and learn about things that you know.
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