Topic 5: School and Work
As a teacher, we need to be aware of our own implicit, or underlying expectations from students. We need to be clear so that students do their very best work, and don't just look at marks, but what they are dong and how it will benefit them. Sometimes, a student's best is not our highest expectation, but we need to be able to put our own personal biases and sometimes our own expectations behind, and take the student's situation into perspective. For example, if a student who has been achieving 50% across the board works hard and achieves a 65%, in our own expectation that may not be our top expectation, but for that student, that is a 15% improvement. As we talk about later in this post, we need to keep in mind our expectations of students and how we are rewarding students. As mentioned before, if a student is showing self-improvement, that is not something we should be frowning on, even if he/she has not yet achieved the top. We need to reward students for doing their best! For example, giving that same student a sticker on their assignment saying, "keep up the good work" is an extrinsic motivator for that student to keep working hard, but it also shows an acknowledgement for that student improving.
Being aware our intrinsic expectations is important as teachers, but I think it is important to be aware of how we are sharing them with students. As what was talked about in the TED Talk today in class, linked here Daniel Pink: The puzzle of motivation we talked about how intrinsic motivation can be influenced and changed by extrinsic motivation, such as awards and rewarding good behaviour. However, individual intrinsic motivation is extremely important for students to keep in mind as well. Using an example from class, a student who is intrinsically motivated to draw better pictures for their own self-fulfilment is an example of intrinsic motivation. However, giving a student a golden star every time they succeed is an example of extrinsic motivation. As Dr. Cormier mentioned in class, a student's intrinsic motivation can sometimes be diminished when introduced to extrinsic motivators, especially in the form of rewards.
We need to know when we should be rewarding students, and when we need to let student's intrinsic motivation be the motivators. B.F. Skinner's demonstration of Operant Conditioning (more information if you follow this link: http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html) shows the massive effect that reward has on behaviour. By rewarding a person or even an animals' behaviour, you are telling them what they should be doing. For example, getting a candy for getting above 80% on an exam will push the students to want to keep scoring above 80%. However, not scoring above 80% and therefore not getting a candy is going to be a disappointment, and will cause the student to want to get above 80% to get that candy.
I think knowing when and when not to let our personal biases and our implicit expectation affect our teaching will make us a better teacher. I think adapting to include both student expectations and our own implicit expectations is probably a good idea, however like everything else, it has its down sides. But I think that will help us become better teachers.
Resources:
Pink, D. (2009, July) The puzzle of motivation. Ted Talk Video.
McLeod, S. (2007) Operant Conditioning. Website. http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html