What Underachieving
Middle School Students
Believe Motivates them to Learn
Middle School Students
Believe Motivates them to Learn
|
|
Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn |
|
Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods Chapter 4: The Results Chapter 5: Discussion
|
Even the teachers who do use activities, relationships, learning styles, and choices to motivate their students, may not be using those motivators in the most effective ways they could. Mrs. Dennis, for example, who is recognized as best knowing the students on the team, is also considered too serious by Ben and Doris. Mrs. Edwards would vary activities to try to keep student interest, but Ben reports that sometimes the activities related to completely different units, and he didn’t like the discontinuity. Also, although students reported enjoying science experiments, it was never made clear how each experiment tied into the curriculum or what learning outcomes were expected from the activity. Choices were also limited for students. They were given small decisions, such as about the schedule for the unit, how to report out, who to work with, or what book to read or activity to do. Choice about what to learn was clearly never an option. Maybe students should be allowed to help decide what they will learn. Ben said he wished for such a course. Curriculum planning could describe the structures and procedures for allowing students to become learners, following their own curiosities and interests with teachers coaching them, helping to monitor progress, insuring academic integrity, and challenging the students. The Norwegian national curriculum, for example, calls for "project-centered, integrated activities planned with the students," (Vars, 2000, p. 3). Some educators and policy makers are concerned that we would end up with students who study a plethora of topics, and there would be no uniformity or consistency. Quinn reminds us "Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself" (quoted in Goodlad, 1997, p. 148). Besides, a fixed curriculum is fairly boring. One educator calls it the Spandex Curriculum—one size fits all. We all know what spandex has done for the fashion world! In practice, a pair of spandex shorts might fit anyone, but they are functional for few of us, and flattering on even fewer. Papert agrees we should allow students to explore what interests them:
Further, there was limited evidence of teachers’ attention to learning styles, despite the clear indication of individual differences between the participants. Teachers reported giving students a learning style inventory early in the year, but it was not clear how (or if) the information from the inventory was used to impact instruction. They did mention trying to include videos, hands-on activities, and artwork in their lessons, but how well were these activities integrated into the objectives of the unit or lesson? The quilt square art project related to Huck Finn and the river unit, for instance, was presented as an example of a creative activity. According to my observations, and interviews with students and the teacher, however, quilts, their history, and the meanings behind their designs were never incorporated into the unit. Students simply made a square and hung it on the wall. It did give students a (brief) creative outlet, but the educational opportunity to make the unit richer and fuller was missed; the activity seemed simply tagged on. When teachers did talk about how they try to modify instruction to provide for different learning styles, besides projects, videos, and art activities, they spoke mostly of giving students choices and of being flexible in how students meet unit objectives. Despite the current popularity of learning styles and Multiple Intelligences in educational conferences, workshops, journals and magazines, little was mentioned along those lines by the teachers who participated in this study. It seems that much more could be accomplished with students when teachers incorporate instructional ideas from Sternberg’s (1997) four uses for information (recall, analyze, create, use) or Multiple Intelligence Theory (Gardner, 1983, 1998, 1999). Campbell and Campbell (1999) found, for example, that the schools with long-term MI programs they studied showed impressive achievement gains on state assessments and standardized tests, and a reduction or elimination of score disparity between white and minority students. In all fairness, I worked with terrific teachers on wonderful teams, and they clearly worked hard to motivate their students. It is possible that these are isolated events or that in my limited time in the school, I simply didn’t witness the pieces I thought were missing. The questions "what makes for good activities, choices, and relationships?" and "how can educators get better at them?" are fair questions, however. |
|
|
Send questions or comments to wilder@somtel.com Last updated April 25, 2001 |
Assistant Professor of Education University of Maine at Farmington 104 Main Street Farmington, ME 04938 207.778.7179 wilder@somtel.com http://violet.umf.maine.edu/~mmuir |