Something that I am
constantly thinking about is what motivates students to succeed and what has
motivated me to succeed and the single word that everything goes back to is
grades. Do I want my students to be motivated by grades, or by learning? I say
learning. And while no student may be motivated to do something if you tell
them they will learn, you can motivate them by praising their effort instead of
their grades, because the only way to learn anything is to work at it, which
involves effort.
To relate this to
myself, when I was in the 7th grade I realized that I was putting
twice as much effort into assignments than my peers did, yet I was getting the
same grades of A. No one ever said great effort, it was always great grade. So
naturally I started to slack off, and I graduated high school 12th
in my class of over 200 and even had some college credits. I was motivated in
school to get good grades, not learn, and I couldn’t tell you much about
anything I did to get those grades.
As teachers, we will
get to know our students and what they are capable of. I don’t want students
like me that have no motivation to try because what they do is good enough for
a great grade, I want students to try because they want to prove they are the
best and can do incredible things. I think instead of saying good grade and bad
grade, we should say good work, but I know you can do better, I want you to give
your best effort. If I had a teacher that told me my grade was the highest in
the class, but they were disappointed because they knew I could have done more
and tried harder, I would have. I assume recognizing effort and the amount put
into assignments would also inspire students who may try their hardest and fall
short. Praising their effort will inspire them to continue to try and succeed.
Focusing on their C after they tried so hard may simply make them feel like
they can’t do better, and this is something no one wants. We need to make sure
we praise best effort, not good grades.
I think that focusing on the students who make those repeated attempts and still can't get it right is a very positive way to teach, Nate. Even those who are struggling need to feel that praise that should come with learning something. Even though that something may not have been what was originally intended as that focal point, acknowledgement is half the battle.
ReplyDeleteHonestly if as a student I was getting A's or B pluses or something else that was a good grade and a teacher said "good job but I think you can do better" I would flat out give up. In fact that is something I used to do a lot. I was (am) a stubborn person and that kind of motivation just didn't work for me. I was never the student that wanted to be pushed to do better I was the student that wanted to be validated that what my efforts were doing were good. While I agree with you that motivation should not be grade based I think there is something to be said about the complexity of motivation. Every one of our students will be motivated in a different way.
ReplyDeleteI've been hearing some grading policies where as if a student does not meet standards, they can do the assignment again and if they show improvement then they'll pass. I don't agree with this. If you need a B to pass and on your first try you get an F, then on your second try you get a C+, well, yeah you passed, but you didn't meet the standard, there has to be a conservation of standards. I've also noticed that I get better grades when I actually liked and wanted to impress the teacher. If I didn't care about what the teacher/professor thought, then whatever, but if I liked them, then I wanted to do well. This is why it's important to establish a good relationship with students, because if they respect and like you, then chances are they'll want to make you proud and work harder.
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