Module Five
Keeping students motivated in a classroom for eight hours a day can be a challenge. Woolfolk (2014) discusses several different ways in which to encourage learning in your classroom, and keep your student motivated.
1. Behavioral approaches: This approach focuses on rewards and incentives. The difference between these two can be confusing, but ultimately, an incentive is a promise of reward if the student does well, whereas a reward is actually getting something for doing well, an extrinsic motivator. Using incentives and rewards can encourage or discourage different types of behavior in the classroom.
2. Humanistic approaches: This type of approach emphasizes the students’ freedom to work in the classroom, which is a great approach when using a student-centered strategy. This allows students to make their own choices and create their own learning. It sounds great in theory, however a teacher must first establish great classroom management in order to keep their students focused.
3. Cognitive approach: Teachers must have clear expectations to use this kind of approach, and it should be assumed that students are naturally curious about the content. This strategy focuses on intrinsic motivation, much like the humanistic approach, as students want to feel good about what they did to guide their own learning.
4. Social Cognitive approach: An important aspect of this approach is called “Expectancy x value theories”, which are explanations of motivation that emphasize individuals’ expectations for success combined with their valuing of the goal. This is another good approach to use in a student-centered classroom, but again, the teacher must make expectations clear to their students and maintain effective classroom management techniques.
5. Sociocultural: These perspectives emphasize participation, identities, and interpersonal relations within communities of practice. I think this would be a great approach for widely diverse classrooms, or even classrooms with some behavior issues. Since it focuses on intrinsic motivators, students can encourage each other to do well in small groups with others they may identify more with.
I think these are great strategies, however it can be hard to plan ahead until you know what kind of class you’ll have. For example, I think the behavioral approach is probably the easiest and most straight forward to use, and it’s most likely a good option if I have a class with some behavior issues that are hard to control. On the other hand, a humanistic approach might be a better option for an elective class that students choose to take and are excited about learning the material.
Additionally, using mostly student centered learning in the classroom is a good way to keep students motivated. This makes students feel more in control of their learning, and encourages curiosity, responsibility, and critical thinking. The Glossary of Education Reform highlights a few benefits of student-centered learning:
- Teaching and learning is “personalized,” meaning that it addresses the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students.
- Students advance in their education when they demonstrate they have learned the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn (for a more detailed discussion, see proficiency-based learning).
- Students have the flexibility to learn “anytime and anywhere,” meaning that student learning can take place outside of traditional classroom and school-based settings, such as through work-study programs or online courses, or during nontraditional times, such as on nights and weekends.
- Students are given opportunities to make choices about their own learning and contribute to the design of learning experiences.
STAGE 1 – DESIRED RESULTS |
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| Unit Title: The Hellenistic Era
Established Goals: Recall, select, and explain Alexander The Great’s cultural, political, and/or economic impacts on the Hellenistic era throughout Afro Eurasia.
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| Understandings: Students will understand that…Alexander The Great helped spread culture, policies, and goods throughout Afro Eurasia which impacted the way future civilizations emerged. Primary sources are ways to learn about the past, but contextualizing and analyzing historical bias is necessary for a more accurate account.
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Essential Questions:Was Alexander The Great truly great?
How did Alexander The Great spread culture, policies, and goods throughout Afro Eurasia, and how did his conquests affect future civilizations? What does it mean to contextualize a primary document, and why is analyzing historical bias important? |
| Students will know:How Alexander The Great’s conquests affected civilizations during that time period and in the future in multiple ways, and why that is important.
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Students will be able to:Contextualize primary documents, analyze historical biases, and determine the ethical outcomes of Alexander The Great’s conquests.
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STAGE 2 – ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE |
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| Performance Tasks: Formative: Guided table worksheet about who Alexander The Great conquered where, and when, how he influenced those people, and what they thought of his military presence and leadership. Summative: A few paragraphs written individually answering the prompt, “Was Alexander The Great truly great?” in which students can argue using the evidence provided on the guided worksheet. Students will choose two of the three ways (culturally, politically, and economic) he impacted civilizations and support their argument using the primary documents analyzed together in class.
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Other Evidence:Identify and explain the culture, government, and economics of conquered peoples, use primary documents to effectively analyze how Alexander The Great impacted those peoples. |
| Key Criteria:Establish and analyze historical bias in primary documents, think critically about how conquests can negatively and positively affect current and future civilizations.
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STAGE 3 – LEARNING PLAN |
| Summary of Learning Activities:Establish what students already know about Alexander The Great, and if they think he was truly great or not.
Allow time for students to fill out worksheet either individually or in a small group with knowledge they already have. Use primary documents as a class to fil in the rest of their worksheet, discussing the different biases presented in the documents and how this may be a problem in a historical context. Create a timeline map to show how far Alexander The Great traveled in such a short amount of time during his conquests. Individually write a short in-class paper answering the ultimate question, “Was Alexander the Great great?” in which they can argue either side, using the worksheet as a guide and the primary sources as evidence. Students can choose to focus on two of the three (culture, policies, and economics) different areas in order to assess his “greatness”. |
The first stage of this lessons plan explains that students will be able to do more than just know and understand, but able to recall and analyze primary documents. Additionally, stage two incorporates both formative and summative assessments to be done as a class and individually. Finally, the learning activities allow students some freedom to share what they already know with the class, in smaller groups, with partners, or simply work by themselves- which ever way they most comfortable with in order to create a positive learning environment. I also think that including both a discussion and the timeline map can help students who learn in different ways. The discussion can help students who like to be engaged more in the classroom, and who may be more outspoken, while the timeline map can be a more visual representation for those students who may learn better by drawing or seeing.
It’s important to remember that learning can only take place when students feel safe, comfortable, and valued in the classroom.
References
Concepts, L. (2014, May 07). Student-Centered Learning Definition. Retrieved April 21, 2017, from http://edglossary.org/student-centered-learning/
Woolfolk, A. (2014).Educational psychology: active learning edition (12th ed.). Boston: Pearson.