Reflective Practice
Classroom Motivation
Rationale
"Accomplished teachers of students with exceptional needs regularly analyze, evaluate, and strengthen the quality of their practice." (NBPTS)
During the course of my studies I was asked to reflect on one of my professional strengths. I chose motivation. The following journal entry documents the strategies that I use in my classroom.
Classroom Motivation
Each class period students walk into our classroom, get their supplies from the bookshelf, and begin the warm up assignment. After I finish taking attendance, I greet them, and we discuss the assignment briefly. The students are eager to share their answers to the assignment. Although the task is a challenge, they are not afraid to give it a try. This assignment is a review of recent learning, or serves as an introduction to the lesson ahead. The process is our opening routine; however, the warm up assignment takes a variety of forms. In other words, I have put into practice the preconditions for motivation as suggested by Jere Brophy in his article Synthesis of Research on Strategies for Motivating Students to Learn (Brophy, 1987).
In this calm, comfortable, and effective learning environment, I use a series of motivational strategies as outlined in Brophy’s article. Two strategies for discussion are Allow students to create finished products and Incorporate game-like features into exercises.
A finished product allows a student to demonstrate a body of knowledge while encouraging the use of multiple intelligences. I offer choices of products and use products in a number of lessons. For an example I will explain the “Adopt an Element” assignment. After a few lessons of introduction to the Periodic Table of Elements, the sixth-graders each choose one element. They create an advertisement to sell the element. A rubric guides them to include the symbol, atomic number, pictures, price, and catchy slogan. From there, they can choose poster board, power point, or video to complete the creation. The students literally run into our room on the days that they are given to work on their projects. Assessments show that the students retain information on their own element as well as those of their classmates.
Another effective strategy is Incorporate game-like features into exercises. I accomplish this using the SmartBoard interactive white board. The board’s software includes hundreds of features that can be edited for each specific lesson, vocabulary words, or list of facts. In addition, teachers have shared their own creations on websites, so the access to game-like features is limitless. The variety is so vast that the students are never doing the same thing into monotony, only using the same tool. It has features of matching, hangman, puzzles, reveal-the-answer on selection, and templates for story creation, graphs and interactive tools for math. Anything that is interactive on the Internet is also interactive on the SmartBoard. If I did not love teaching so much, I would sell these boards.
My school district in Ohio bought a SmartBoard for my classroom four years ago, after I had attended a technology conference and several training sessions. In professional development workshops, I taught the other teachers how to use the board. I set up game-like activities for the teachers to practice their new skills.
I am a teacher leader in a teaching capacity. I need to create finished products, such as a workshop, and to lead my colleagues in their own finished product, mastering the skill of using technology effectively.
My own motivation is maintained by the next opportunity to learn something new that I can, in turn, teach others. When the Ohio Department of Education initiated a new type of data tracking system, my district superintendent asked me to attend several weeks’ training with another teacher and to create a workshop for our district. We accomplished that task. What’s next? The professional development coordinator here in Egypt asked if I would be willing to present something from my Teacher as Leader course. I am already on it. I plan to focus on motivational strategies and to create a game-like exercise.
Reflection
Today my teaching situation is much different, but children are pretty much the same. The same strategies outlined above appeal to my students here in rural Ohio. Some of students here are in danger of dropping out, which was not the case at all in Egypt. But all of them need motivating content in order to be successful.
In tutoring, I create a framework for the students to build a study guide of their core curriculum units, giving them the finished product. My classroom has a SmartBoard, Kurzweil and numerous programs of assistive technology to facilitate creative review activities.
"Accomplished teachers of students with exceptional needs regularly analyze, evaluate, and strengthen the quality of their practice." (NBPTS)
During the course of my studies I was asked to reflect on one of my professional strengths. I chose motivation. The following journal entry documents the strategies that I use in my classroom.
Classroom Motivation
Each class period students walk into our classroom, get their supplies from the bookshelf, and begin the warm up assignment. After I finish taking attendance, I greet them, and we discuss the assignment briefly. The students are eager to share their answers to the assignment. Although the task is a challenge, they are not afraid to give it a try. This assignment is a review of recent learning, or serves as an introduction to the lesson ahead. The process is our opening routine; however, the warm up assignment takes a variety of forms. In other words, I have put into practice the preconditions for motivation as suggested by Jere Brophy in his article Synthesis of Research on Strategies for Motivating Students to Learn (Brophy, 1987).
In this calm, comfortable, and effective learning environment, I use a series of motivational strategies as outlined in Brophy’s article. Two strategies for discussion are Allow students to create finished products and Incorporate game-like features into exercises.
A finished product allows a student to demonstrate a body of knowledge while encouraging the use of multiple intelligences. I offer choices of products and use products in a number of lessons. For an example I will explain the “Adopt an Element” assignment. After a few lessons of introduction to the Periodic Table of Elements, the sixth-graders each choose one element. They create an advertisement to sell the element. A rubric guides them to include the symbol, atomic number, pictures, price, and catchy slogan. From there, they can choose poster board, power point, or video to complete the creation. The students literally run into our room on the days that they are given to work on their projects. Assessments show that the students retain information on their own element as well as those of their classmates.
Another effective strategy is Incorporate game-like features into exercises. I accomplish this using the SmartBoard interactive white board. The board’s software includes hundreds of features that can be edited for each specific lesson, vocabulary words, or list of facts. In addition, teachers have shared their own creations on websites, so the access to game-like features is limitless. The variety is so vast that the students are never doing the same thing into monotony, only using the same tool. It has features of matching, hangman, puzzles, reveal-the-answer on selection, and templates for story creation, graphs and interactive tools for math. Anything that is interactive on the Internet is also interactive on the SmartBoard. If I did not love teaching so much, I would sell these boards.
My school district in Ohio bought a SmartBoard for my classroom four years ago, after I had attended a technology conference and several training sessions. In professional development workshops, I taught the other teachers how to use the board. I set up game-like activities for the teachers to practice their new skills.
I am a teacher leader in a teaching capacity. I need to create finished products, such as a workshop, and to lead my colleagues in their own finished product, mastering the skill of using technology effectively.
My own motivation is maintained by the next opportunity to learn something new that I can, in turn, teach others. When the Ohio Department of Education initiated a new type of data tracking system, my district superintendent asked me to attend several weeks’ training with another teacher and to create a workshop for our district. We accomplished that task. What’s next? The professional development coordinator here in Egypt asked if I would be willing to present something from my Teacher as Leader course. I am already on it. I plan to focus on motivational strategies and to create a game-like exercise.
Reflection
Today my teaching situation is much different, but children are pretty much the same. The same strategies outlined above appeal to my students here in rural Ohio. Some of students here are in danger of dropping out, which was not the case at all in Egypt. But all of them need motivating content in order to be successful.
In tutoring, I create a framework for the students to build a study guide of their core curriculum units, giving them the finished product. My classroom has a SmartBoard, Kurzweil and numerous programs of assistive technology to facilitate creative review activities.